It’s the Republicans, stupid: “What bothers you and why?”

“This might be a June thing from now on.” Riiight. Remember when the blather published in the second half of May? Oh well, it’s not as if various current environments are changing on a daily goddamn basis. July is the new black and so is malaise.

It’s awfully late in the game for non-existent readers to care but I’ll plow ahead anyway for, you know, completionism. After all, G. will one day read this and I don’t want her to have any gaps in the narrative, no doubts that “Wow, my dad really hated Donald Trump and Grace Slick.” Look for six lyric-only entries below as they apply to the former—their brevity will balance out multiple overlong Wikipedia cut-and-pastes, but unfortunately not the fat fuck’s second term.

Onward, and all hail the graffito affixed to Hanover Garage in Portsmouth, a fresh hot pink in May 2024 that foretold the political season to come. I sent a picture to former colleague/ongoing pal Ignacio a damn week before Volume 16’s publication and declared “I’m calling it right now, that’s next year’s mix cover.” And here we are—there are even a bunch of 17s in the grout if you look closely enough. Gimme a break. Happy July 25.

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1. Betty Davis – Dedicated to the Press
Three months ago when I started pulling tracks together I toyed with the idea of a concept compilation à la 2001’s Colonel Jeffrey Pumpernickel and no other various-artist examples I can think of at the moment. Imagine pulling off that shit with forty-eight bands across three-plus hours—because I can’t! I made it as far as the first two songs and gave the fuck up—you try it, you’re so big. Betty Davis, being both the first female/female-fronted band to lead things off since Le Tigre in friggin 2007 (!) and the first person/people of color since the Voices of Conquest in 2019, skewers CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson for their bullshit book about Joe Biden’s highly successful presidency. Can we expect a follow-up in four years where they excoriate each other for their reporting failures regarding the current asshole in chief who stumbles on stairs and forgets names of world leaders? Guys, you can call it Original Frauds, or East of Eden the Hard Way. George Clooney can even write the forward: “But my feelings!”

2. Cansei De Ser Sexy – Art Bitch
Kennedy Center blah blah… this concept really petered out. Art tits and holes distract from the real issue: is this band called Cansei De Ser Sexy or its “initialism” CSS? If the latter, why name your eponymous (?) album Cansei De Ser Sexy? And why bother translating Beyoncé’s excellent “tired of being sexy” quote for the sake of an acronym? “Maybe it’s just narcissism.” Enough.

3. C Average – Strider ’88
4. Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffaloes – Pygmy
“How are the gaaames this evening?” “Fine!” Cave Rage is back with another goddamn Lord of the Rings song, batting third again as All-Star sluggers are meant to. Akira Ishikawa, whose jazz-rock drumming chops likely influenced George Lucas and other epic filmmakers, joins in the near-instrumental fun by chanting what I can only assume are Japanese translations of Aragorn alter egos.

5. Ice Cube – Now I Gotta Wet’cha
If there’s any coherent throughline to this thing then in-song dialog is it—so far, C Average’s Zantar the Chaotic Good Elf prank calls Game Masters “in [his] native tongue,” and now Ice Cube, listening to his own guest spot on Da Lench Mob’s “Guerillas in the Mist,” assassinates a motherfucker in cold blood. “No shit? Watch this.” The coldest blood! Also:

“Now I Gotta Wet’cha” is the source of the popular phrase “It’s on like Donkey Kong.” Since the song’s release, the quote has been used in sports, commercials, movies and television with a huge surge in usage from 2000 to 2005. In 2010, Nintendo trademarked the phrase in order to promote the Wii game Donkey Kong Country Returns. In the 2023 animated film The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Donkey Kong uses the phrase himself.

Meanwhile, “Bitch, it’s curtains!” begs for another beige Pottery Barn campaign.

6. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Demon’s Demands
From this single’s Bandcamp page:

If you are new to Australia’s EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING…

Emphasis Bandcamp’s, or at least some publicist’s.

…then get ready to be rocked in a whole other way. These two songs…

“I’m Guilty” is also excellent, but a little similar to last year’s “All in Good Time.” I take this shit seriously.

…are totally hypnotic, engaging, garage(ish) rave-ups that transcend convention and genre expectation.

How about these people who pronounce “genre” with a hard J?

One of the most exciting and honest bands to come around in a long time. I can’t sing enough praise here.

I can tell, but can you please add a verb to that first “sentence”?

Shit, these guys won the Australian Music Prize…

Shit, what??

…for their second album Primary Colours. Well deserved in my opinion.

Agreed, “Colour Television” came so close that time. You lost another verb though.

Do yourself a favor and get this record.

Nah, vinyl is stupid. Instead you should download the So Many Things compilation—another Bandcamp Friday is around the corner.

7. Goldfrapp – Utopia
When I started over at Blogger twenty goddamn years ago I ran across It’s a Dreary World, Gentlemen and eventually formed a bloggo friendship with its author Steve Forceman. He’s since gone the way of the ass taco but included Goldfrapp’s “Pilots” on a 2011 playlist, which is also from Felt Mountain and was in the running here before SPECTRE took control. I did remember old Steve though:

[Felt Mountain] has this sopoforic [sic], sunny feel.

Doomed from the start—RIP buddy.

8. Blackalicious – Blazing Arrow
If there’s a better band name out there then shoot me dead. Their second album’s title track—in retrospect, Nia is much better—samples three songs from Harry Nilsson’s The Point! LP, which tells the story of “the round-headed Oblio” and his dog Arrow and some king and, eventually, round buildings. MC Cliff’s Notes to the rescue.

9. RL Burnside – Goin’ Down South
Burnside’s A Ass Pocket of Whiskey collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was recorded in February 1996, released in June 1996 and blasted from the windows of every car I’ve owned ever since. “Kee-rect!”

10. Six Finger Satellite – Hans Pocketwatch
From the digitally ripped Machine Cuisine EP, which is still in print on stupid vinyl and otherwise unavailable. [Update: It will be included on a forthcoming Severe Exposure reissue. How very creamy!] Nine appearances across seventeen plus one (zero) volumes is more than anyone except for Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees/Oh Sees/Osees, and with a much smaller and older catalog than either. Clone Theory… Weapon… I’m running out of source material and wish that more releases had companion cassettes.

11. Punch – Deathhead
Greg Kot in a recent Sound Opinions “bonus episode” gave himself and co-host Jim DeRogatis a chance to pretend they enjoy guitar-based rock & roll by highlighting a twenty-volume (and counting) compilation series called Brown Acid: Heavy Rock From the Underground Comedown. His choice for the Desert Island Jukebox was the first set’s “Box” by the band Zekes, which is specifically not too bad, except that “Deathhead” was there for the taking. “Cuz I’ve seen and felt and heard my way to the ground, yeah!” It’s right there, you clown!

12. Zombies – Care of Cell 44
Wikipedia deep dive? Wikipedia deep dive!

“Care of Cell 44” was released as the lead single from the Zombies’ album Odessey and Oracle in November 1967.

Excellent topic sentence that I heavily edited!

It was featured on Pitchfork’s “200 Best Songs of the 1960s” list.

Cool, I’m sure it got a score of 8.6 or some bullshit.

“Care of Cell 44” is written in 4/4 time in the key of G major, although arts journalist Matt Kivel identifies numerous modulations between key centers in the song.

Arts journalist (!) Matt Kivel is a steaming virgin.

[…] The song’s lyrics are written in the form of a letter from a lover to his imprisoned partner, anticipating their reunion. Songwriter Rod Argent said “It just appealed to me. That twist on a common scenario, I just can’t wait for you to come home to me again.”

I know genders aren’t identified but we can safely assume the inmate is a woman—isn’t that the real twist?

John Motley has described the song as “the sunniest song ever written about the impending release of a prison inmate.”

Name three others, you Pitchfork hack.

“Care of Cell 44” was recorded under the working title of “Prison Song” in four takes. […] The song was initially retitled “Care of Cell 69” but Al Gallico, the Zombies’ American publisher, rejected this title due to the sexual subtext of the number 69.

As if there isn’t a sextual subtext to subtracting twenty-five. Nice.

The single release was not a success, causing some of the tension that led to the breakup of the band in December. Vocalist Colin Blunstone said to Mojo in 2008 that he “thought that ‘Care of Cell 44’ was incredibly commercial” and “was really disappointed when it wasn’t a hit.”

This is a damn shame because it’s a catchy and beautiful song, as is much of Odessey and Oracle, and the band never got enjoy its eventual success while still together. Maybe they should have gotten themselves arrested and built a marketing campaign around their own prison correspondence?

In 2006, Pitchfork listed “Care of Cell 44” as the ninety-eighth best song of the 1960s, with John Motley praising its “lush arrangement and ecstatic melodies.”

Jesus Christ, is Motley writing for Wikipedia now? I give this entry a 6.9/10.

13. The Difference Machine – Smoke
The Difference Machine doesn’t have a Wikipedia page but Discogs calls them a “psychedelic rap group from Atlanta.” They had me at “psych,” though they lost me with the bulk of their non-“Smoke” discography—everything is catchy and properly psychedelic but familiar to a fault as entire sixties breaks are converted into nonlayered instrumental tracks. (It’s one way to simplify sample clearances—and to ape The Chronic’s monotony—but I’ll take the Bomb Squad every time.) Guest rapper Homeboy Sandman does have an extensive Wikipedia page and the unidentified guest comic might too: “Shit, they’re lyin’ to us!” You got that right! “Fuuuck!” Amen!

14. Garnet Mimms – As Long As I Have You
15. Led Zeppelin – Your Time Is Gonna Come ✔️
A. and I caught Becoming Led Zeppelin, in which Jimmy Page plainly admits that “Dazed and Confused,” “which was inspired by Jake Holmes,” was stolen from Jake Holmes. How very big of Jimmy. (Led Zeppelin: I love them.) The experience was wonderful from the moment the lights went down in the small single-screen cinema and the proprietor introduced the movie by encouraging us to sing along. A few rows down, someone responded “What if we can’t sing as well as Jimmy Page?” Seconds passed, one, two, three, tense, before someone (not me, somehow) could restrain herself no longer and corrected “Robert Plant… Robert Plant is the singer.” Sometimes I love this country. Anyway, Mimms’s “As Long As I Have You” was part of early Zeppelin medleys along with with “Fresh Garbage” by the apparently uninspiring Spirit, for whom Zeppelin opened on their first American tour. “Had a lot of battles, some I lost and some I’ve won!”

On March 9, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California, ruled in favor of Led Zeppelin, in that “Stairway to Heaven” does not infringe on the copyright of “Taurus.” […] On October 5, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States denied to grant certiorari…

“A writ or order by which a higher court reviews a decision of a lower court.” (!)

…to [Spirit bassist Mark] Andes and the trust, leaving the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in place in favor of Led Zeppelin. The court’s decision precludes further appeals, thus ending the copyright dispute.

“Inspired by Jake Holmes.” Some you’ve won, alright.

16. Mudhoney – Thirteenth Floor Opening
“When in Rome” would have made more sense for reasons I’ll get into in, oh, fifteen minutes, but “Thirteenth Floor Opening” (which sounds like a Mudhoney outtake) pairs its sloppy “Blinding Sun”-less opening with the previous track’s abrupt “Black Mountain Side”-less ending. But Volume 13 borrowed the “everything’s wide open” refrain for its largely obscured title? And I like the 13th Floor Elevators? And I have a thirteen-year-old daughter? Good enough.

17. Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso
DJT Suite, Part 1: “Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole, not like you.”

18. Brahja – Querencia
19. Giovanni Tommaso – Strong Beat
Brahja information is hard to come by—et tu, Wikipedia?—and “Querencia” has no lyrics so I’m off to Discogs for help writing something, anything:

Devin Brahja Waldman is a New York saxophonist, drummer, synthesizer player and composer. He has performed with [various hipsters] and leads a NYC/Montreal-based band named Brahja (a.k.a. B R A H J A).

I’m not spelling it “B R A H J A.” Do you even know me? The eleven-minute instrumental block continues with Giovanni Tommaso, whose translated Italian Wikipedia page (“John Thomas”) (?) is spotty and never mentions the 1970 Indefinitive Atmosphere LP. “Not clearly fixed,” indeed.

Giovanni Tommaso is an Italian bassist and double bassist. At eighteen, he began working as a musician in cruise ship orchestras, which allowed him to frequent New York jazz clubs between 1959 and 1960, where he met double bass players such as Paul Chambers, Ray Brown and Charles Mingus. […] While attending the Conservatory in Bologna, he played with Chet Baker after the trumpeter was detained in Lucca for drug problems. […] In 2003, Tommaso was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from [Boston’s] Berklee College of Music during the Umbria Jazz Festival.

Nice! This reminds me of our trip to Italy last summer, when the only thing I forgot to pack was a razor (though not shaving cream). Since I have dignity I was determined to pick one up somewhere and, lo and behold, while wandering the streets of Florence I ducked into a pharmacy for the opportunity to overpay for a Gillette two-pack. Gillette’s international headquarters? Boston goddamn Massachusetts. Welcome to manhood.

20. Public Enemy – Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos ✔️
DJT Suite, Part 2 (Main Title): “The same motherfucker got us livin’ in his hell.”

21. Comets on Fire – Return to Heaven
Transcription-challenged debut Comets on Fire? Check. Ten-minute penultimate track-supplying Blue Cathedral? Check. And now, “sprawling, massive and loud as fuck” (Pitchfork, 8.0/10, eyeroll) Field Recordings From the Sun? Check.

Comets on Fire were an American noise rock band from Santa Cruz, California. They [were] notable for their heavy use of the Echoplex, used primarily on vocals but on other instruments as well. This often render[ed] the lyrics unintelligible; [singer Ethan] Miller claim[ed] to not remember the lyrics after putting an album together.

Unintelligible, forgettable lyrics are the best kind, so look for Avatar’s “Holy Teeth” in a future volume.

22. PJ Harvey – A Noiseless Noise
“A Noiseless Noise” was somehow left off the soundtrack to A Quiet Place and its sequel and prequel (my favorite of the three), though maybe that makes sense because none of the protagonists’ efforts to be “noiseless” were worth a damn. Total silence is impossible, right? Especially in the face of remorseless creatures that can selectively hear the workings of your inner organs. Xenomorphs incapacitate hosts, Predators collect trophies, ALFs consume cats—what’s the deal with Death Angels? Are they constantly under threat or just sociopaths stepping on ants? Perplexing, à la PJ Harvey’s performance art to a certain thirteen-year-old. When G. recently discovered (not recently enough to get tickets) that something called KATSEYE is playing the very same MGM Music Hall in November she indicated it would be more her speed on the concert front, and I silently judged her into the ground.

23. Black Sabbath – The Wizard
24. Mothers of Invention – Mr. Green Genes
25. Gong – Cos You Got Green Hair
26. The Attack – Feel Like Flying
G. asked to go see Wicked in theaters and, knowing nothing about it other than the bullet points (and that it starred Cynthia Erivo, who wowed me in The Outsider, and Ariana Grande, who annoyed the shit out of me in Sam & Kat), I fucking loved that shit. Something else to have included in the list of things I didn’t know about ahead of time, though: it’s a two-part series, and the movie’s “ending” revealed itself as a mere intermission when TO BE CONTINUED filled the screen. The fuck?? Anyway, this four-song mini-soundtrack will help tide me over with sincere apologies to Sugarloaf, Pink Floyd, early Fleetwood Mac and other “green” songwriters. (In a related note, Ignacio’s son’s band Magic Mobile performed “The Wizard” as part of a student showcase after I’d already penciled it in here. The universe takes this shit seriously, even if the medley potential with Cypress Hill’s “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” was unrealized.) Lastly, RIP to Ozzy Osbourne, who died Tuesday. Drag. These are hitting harder every time.

27. Le Tigre – FYR
Le Tigre wins the “remove one letter to ruin a band” contest (Le Tire) and Feminist Sweepstakes’s “FYR” fits alongside some of the obvious anthems to oppression in the blather songbook—“Indictment,” “1990,” “The Message,” etc.

“FYR,” which stands for “Fifty Years of Ridicule,” is a reference to the book The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone, which describes the fifty years of ridicule American women had to deal with between obtaining the ability to vote in 1920 to the book’s publication in 1970. It also includes references to mifepristone/RU-486, Title IX, the shower scene in which Janet Leigh is killed in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Mrs. Doubtfire…

Hellooo!

…and Virginia Slims cigarettes, who used the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby” and themes of independence and liberation to advertise towards women during the 1960s and 1970s. The song’s outro is a live performance of an excerpt from the stand-up monologue, The Saturday Night Special: Rape and Other Big Jokes, written by Naomi Weisstein.

NFL Draft correspondent Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl: My Life As a Feminist Punk was my favorite 2024 book in a year of multiple five-star reads. Um, anyone else think notorious inserter-of-self-in-others’-recordings Calvin Johnson was Kathleen’s unidentified offender? Anyway, Hanna’s “I will debate you at the college of your choice!” response to Courtney Love coldcocking her in the face was a genuine LOL that would have given this post its title if Chuck D hadn’t perfectly encapsulated our current conditions from thirty-seven goddamn years ago. Again.

28. Osees – Blimp
Mudhoney should have been “When in Rome” and Osees should have been “Cassius, Brutus and Judas” after we visited the Roman site of Julius Caesar’s cremated goddamn remains. I get it. But I dare you to look at our president and tell me “Blimp” doesn’t nail his legacy in the opening verse and chorus:

Hey!
I’m a fuckin’ blimp!
Shadow over your head!
Screaming over the dead!

I’m a new hero.
I’m bleeding and I’ve lost control.
Can you heal my soul?
It’s leakin’ from a bullet hole!

Hey! You’re a fuckin’ simp!

29. Prince Paul – Chubb Rock Can You Please Pay Paul the $2,200 You Owe Him (People, Places and Things)
Featuring the titular Chubb Rock, MF Doom, the beat from De La Soul’s “Pease Porridge” and another comedian’s audience.

30. Ty Segall – The Dance
Segall’s Love Rudiments won me back after a lackluster Three Bells—it only took a friggin percussion-dominated instrumental album—and just in time for this year’s solid Possession. Slot the title track in front of Iron Buttery and make that shit a proper EP. “Pazuzu! [Hisses twice.]” “Pazuzu… Pazuzu… Bazuzu.” “Pazuzu… Pazuzu?” “Kokumo?” “Merci beaucoup.”

31. Os Mutantes – Bat Macumba
The Elois constructed their “By My Side” bridge one word/phrase at a time (“Said I, said I need you, said I need you girl by my side…”) and, come to think of it, so did Giovanni Tommaso’s strong “Strong Beat” beat forty-five minutes ago. In contrast, Os Mutantes (“Los Mustard Seeds”) lays the whole “Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba obá” sucker out from go and chips away a syllable or even a consonant at a time only to build it right back up. Makes an attractive visual:

Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba obá.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba o.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macum.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat ma.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat.
Bat macumba yêyê, ba.
Bat macumba yêyê.
Bat macumba yê.
Bat macumba.
Bat macum.
Bat ma.
Bat.
Ba.
Bat.
Bat ma.
Bat macum.
Bat macumba.
Bat macumba yê.
Bat macumba yêyê.
Bat macumba yêyê, ba.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat ma.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macum.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba o.
Bat macumba yêyê, bat macumba obá.

Incidentally, while macumba might be the (derogatory?) Portuguese term for Afro-Brazilian black magic, yêyê obá is the preferred Portuguese term for overdriven fuzz.

32. Shellac – WSOD ✔️
DJT Suite, Part 3: “Urine, blood and hair—those three always come as a set.”

33. Funkadelic – I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody’s Got a Thing
Yes, but how substantial is your thing versus my thing versus everybody’s thing?

Stuck on a stationary bike while your neighbors drive Ferraris
January 7, 2025

A major challenge President-elect Donald Trump faces upon taking office in two weeks is one that he seems likely to ignore: wealthy Americans are getting wealthier while a huge number of Americans are getting poorer.

The wealth gap is not a new problem, but it’s getting worse. In 1990, the bottom half of American households had a combined wealth of about $700 billion, while the top 0.1% held slightly more than double that at $1.8 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data. Today, the bottom half of households collectively own close to $4 trillion in assets, while the top 0.1% have a combined wealth of more than $22 trillion—more than five times the assets held by the bottom half.

In other words, half of Americans—60 million households—own just 2.5% of the country’s total assets, and there is every prospect that their share will decline even further if Trump carries through on his economic policies.

Who knew rural flyover country was so affluent?

34. Gang of Four – He’d Send in the Army
35. Rocket From the Tombs – Frustration (Live)
RIP to Gang of Four bassist Dave Allen and to Rocket From the Tombs/Pere Ubu singer David Thomas. Allen reforms the Arrows in heaven while “Crocus Behemoth” cuts Reggie White down at the knees. (Yes, it’s a second pull from The Day the Earth Met the Rocket From the Tombs, but it’s been fifteen damn years/volumes. Alright? Vincebus Eruptum, Trout Mask Replica and others can use the new blood.)

36. AC/DC – Live Wire
Text exchange between Ivan, Hector and me on April 29:

Ivan: Would either of you be interested in AC/DC on Sunday for free? Good seats at Gillette.

Jarrod: I like it in theory but I don’t see myself making it to Foxborough and back on a Sunday. I would see a cover band with cheaper beer though.

Hector: I’m in!

Text exchange between Ivan, Hector and me on May 1:

Ivan: Jarrod, if we can talk you into it, I can pick you two up. Already paid for parking with what should be an easy out. Food and beer is lined up for tailgating.

Jarrod: Fine, I’m in.

Ivan: Boom!

Hector: BOOM!

Jarrod: I’m a cheap slut.

37. Pavement – Half a Canyon
From the three-sided Wowee Zowee. Vinyl is stupid. Pavement is Stereolab?

The song “Half a Canyon” mostly focuses on an overdriven guitar sound that [Stephen] Malkmus had never heard before. The lyrics are meaningless…

The best kind!

…and were simply added for decoration. Malkmus said that he screamed so hard toward the end of the song that he scared himself. He thought that he would have an aneurysm and decided to never scream like that again.

“Pazuuuzuuu!”

38. Jennifer Gentle – I Do Dream You
39. Can – Mother Upduff
“Hey,” I wondered as we prepared for last summer’s big trip, “is there a history of psychedelic Italian rock, or any contemporary Italian rock acts to check out?” The short answer is no—Le Orme, Uzeda, Lee Van Kleef (!) and others didn’t scratch the itch, and even Jennifer Gentle barely survived with only Valende’s “I Do Dream You” and A New Astronomy’s “Sex Rituals of the Dead,” both from 2005, surviving to liked-song status. That’s what happens when you try too hard naming yourself after a Syd Barrett lyric. The simpler Can, in its limited German-American edition, demonstrates what it means to embrace a band—eight appearances here, and now two in a row—with what sounds like another session of Malcolm Mooney improvising as the super-tight band chugs along. “Finally… or is it the beginning?”

“Mother Upduff” is a retelling of an urban legend involving a family whose grandmother dies while they are on holiday together, and whose corpse—left wrapped up on the roof of the family car—is later stolen along with the car.

“Old paintings, old buildings, fantastic sites to see.” Aunt Edna weeps.

40. James Brown – Down and Out in New York City
DJT Suite, Part 4: “So you try hard or you die hard, no one really gives a good damn.”

41. Luscious Jackson – Daughters of the Kaos
Hendrix sample as proof of concept: 1992’s In Search of Manny “is essentially the band’s demo tape” and they never were this good again.

42. Kool Keith – I Don’t Believe You
You’ll lower the price of eggs! (I don’t believe you.)
End wars on day one! (I don’t believe you.)
Protect the working class! (I don’t believe you.)
Sign daily trade deals! (I don’t believe you.)

Wipe out nuclear sites! (I don’t believe you.)
Make Mexico pay for it! (I don’t believe you.)
Get your ear shot! (I don’t believe you.)
Be crazy popular! (I don’t believe you.)

You liked the Redskins! (I don’t believe you.)
You hated Epstein! (I don’t believe you.)
You ran a fair race! (I don’t believe you.)
You make America great! (I don’t believe you.)

You don’t like brown people! (Now that, I believe you.)

43. Luigi Tenco – Ognuno È Libero
Earlier Italian research never hit on Luigi Tenco—it took lunch at a tucked-away Florence restaurant with a repeating house playlist to do that. From its opening seconds I pegged the “Ognuno È Libero” (“Ogdens’ Nut Gone Library”) guitar tone around 1966 (correct) and somehow or other, perhaps thanks to Shazam and Verizon’s $10-a-day international plan, was rewarded with a genuine Italian article in the heart of genuine Italy. Eccitante! The bulk of Tenco’s career—cut short by suicide (or maybe murder?) in 1967—is of the Rat Pack balladeer variety, though, and so “Ognuno È Libero” and its Spanish rerecording “Cada Uno Es Libre” (¡!) constitute his rock apex. This, my Gillette razor and losing at least five pounds in the August heat made fine souvenirs.

44. Kim Deal – Disobedience
DJT Suite, Part 5: “If this is all we are, I’m fucked.”

45. The Damned – You Know
RIP guitarist Brian James, who needed no hilarious nickname. “You Know” and fellow contenders “Alone” and “You Take My Money” come from the maligned sophomore album Music for Pleasure, which people dismiss compared to the creamy debut and the mediocre follow-up Machine Gun Etiquette. What gives, baby?

Produced, for numerous arcane reasons, by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, the Damned’s Music for Pleasure was considered a disaster at the time and led to their being dropped from Stiff and their first break-up. In retrospect, however, it’s quite a respectable punk artifact, though the Damned themselves rejected it and never performed any of its songs again. More a historical document than a great LP.

Hype sticker alert: RESPECTABLE PUNK ARTIFACT!

Rejoining forces without Brian James, the remaining three brought in young Saints veteran [Algy] Ward on bass, recorded an album and hoped for the best. That best proved much better than expected; while singles ended up on the charts, Machine Gun Etiquette itself was deservedly hailed as another classic from the band. Over time, its reputation has grown to equal the original Damned Damned Damned.

BETTER THAN EXPECTED! I call bullshit.

46. Edgar Broughton Band – There’s No Vibrations, but Wait!
DJT Suite, Part 6: “That kid’s picture, I’d like the negative—name your price, kid.”

47. John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers – Curly
John Mayall, by all accounts, does not play on this, and pedantic Discogs demands compliance:

The Bluesbreakers
This three-piece band released one solo single (“Curly” b/w “Rubber Duck”) in 1967. They were part of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers but should not be confused with that group. Please do not use this group interchangeably with them.

No one wants to hang out with you at the party, Discogs. Anyway, the Notjohnmayalls consist of Peter Green, John McVie (both months away from starting Fleetwood Mac) and (presumed) superior asshole Aynsley Dunbar—no vocals necessary on top of this essential blues crunch. It’s odd to memorialize Mayall here but also appropriate, since his role in rock history was to mentor future big-timers like Green, Mick Taylor and overrated career lowlife Eric Clapton. Further chronological casualties from the past year or so that might survive via Volume 18:

• James Chance
• Brenton Wood
• David Johanson
• Roy Ayers
• Clem Burke
• Sylvester Stewart
• Brian Wilson
• Lalo Schifrin

Jesus! RIP brothers. Greeny, play us out.

48. Sonics – Strychnine
Anyone who’s read as many Agatha Christie novels and watched as many episodes of Poirot as I have knows it’s almost always strychnine (pronounced “strick-neen” over yonder) or arsenic (“arse-nog” or some nonsense). Almost always! And how pleased was I with this exchange from chapter one of her tedious espionage exercise The Big Four?

“H’m!” said Dr. Ridgeway when he had finished. “Curious case.”

“Brain fever?” I suggested.

The doctor immediately snorted with contempt.

“Brain fever! Brain fever! No such thing as brain fever. An invention of novelists.”

The most splendid invention! You may think it’s funny that I like this stuff.

---

The concept held after all: ten from the sixties (three from ’69); thirteen from the seventies (six from ’70); two from the eighties (natch); six from the nineties (three from ’92); ten from the aughts; only one from the teens; and six from the twenties (four—four!—from ’24). Bless you, daughter. Keep out of those godforsaken red states.

More furious madness
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