With the exception of “Rock Hard,” recorded for the flop Robert Stigwood-produced punk rock film “Times Square,” “The Wild One” is my favorite Quatro song. I was a big fan of Quatro’s, but strangely never heard “The Wild One” until I saw “The Runaways” biopic in 2010, where the song was used over the opening credits. Quatro was too often dismissed as a gimmick back in the day, but she had a lot of great songs and a true pioneer. And if her 2006 album “Back to the Drive” is any indication, she hasn’t lost any of her talent over the years either.
The opening lines are VERY inspirational: “All my life I wanted to be somebody AND HERE I AM!!! I know what I’ve got, and there ain’t nobody gonna take it away from me. So let me tell ya what I am!!”
Here’s a great song you almost never hear on Oldies stations these days … even though it was a Top 10 hit in 1969 (and got as high as #2 on the Billboard R&B charts). This is the late great David Ruffin on his first solo single after leaving the Temptations.
From their self-titled 2001 album (also known as “the Green Album”), “Photograph” is my favorite Weezer song of all time. This is a damn near perfect pop song, overlaid with lots of guitar noise, and says what it needs to say in 2 minutes 19 seconds. In other words, my wheelhouse.
Yes, the accompanying video seems a little too self-consciously geeky, but try to ignore the visuals and groove on the song.
Another killer B-side from the Stones … this time from their 1968 hit “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” No disrespect intended to “Flash,” but this is another B-side that would’ve been an A-side in a better world. Now available on “The Singles Collection: The London Years” boxset … which would be my Desert Island album. Yes, I realize that a 3-CD box set of the Stones singles and B-sides from 1964-1971 is cheating a bit … but if you insist on putting me on a desert island in the first place, we’re going to have negotiate a little if you don’t want to be physically harmed in the process of moving me to said island.
The first time I heard this was on a Saturday morning when I woke up with a horrible hangover. I had bought the album the night before and ran into a female “friend” while I was out and about. After spending several hours of drinking horrendously cheap beer together and having one of those conversations that get embarrassingly “deep” when too much imbibing takes place, I confessed my true feelings for this person and she gave me the “we’re better off as friends” speech. In retrospect, I don’t know what I was expecting. That Rob Reiner – Nora Ephron “When Harry Met Sally” nonsense is … well … nonsense. Every meaningful relationship I’ve ever had has started off on a playing field where both parties are clearly interested on a non-platonic level. Don’t let asinine Hollywood rom-com BS let you believe any differently.
Anyway, nearly 25 years later, I think I got the better end of the bargain with this album. I remember thinking this horribly recorded, but intense song summed up said hangover the next morning pretty well.
Here’s one of the better tracks from the still-groundbreaking 1989 album “Paul’s Boutique.” Any song that manages to cross-mingle Ocean’s “Put Your Hand in the Hand” and Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” and make such a combo sound positively heavy is a great song in my book. Later covered by Anthrax on the 1993 “Beavis and Butthead Experience” album.
El Duce was the lead singer of the debauched punk-metal band The Mentors. They became notorious in the mid-1980s during the Congressional hearings over wicked rock music and were called “the worst of the worst” of all bands recording at the time. Lyrics from their song “Golden Showers” are part of the Congressional record: “Bend up and smell my anal vapor / Your face is my toilet paper.” Sorry, but that s–t is funny!
Here are some of the highlights about Ministry’s Al Jourgensen’s brief friendship with Duce during the late 1980s/early-mid 1990s. Considering how debauched Jourgensen’s autobiography gets, the fact that Duce outdebauched Jourgensen is really saying something.
1. Al Jourgensen first met El Duce on the floor of a bathroom in San Francisco, naked from the waist down, lying in a pack of Dorito chips and vomit. Duce announced to Jourgensen that he had gone to high school with Jourgensen’s drum player. Duce then pissed all over himself, threw up, and passed out in his vomit, urine, and Doritos. Jourgensen helped Duce get himself together and take him to reunite with his drummer. When his drummer saw Duce, he almost stormed out and bailed on the show. Apparently, Duce allegedly attacked his drummer’s sister.
2. Duce tried to have sex with Jourgensen’s mom … in front of Jourgensen’s stepdad. Duce said, “Hey, that’s a pretty hot little b—h,” tackled Jourgensen’s mom, and tried to hump her. Jourgensen had to stop him by breaking a beer bottle over Duce’s head.
3. Duce used to go into Walgreens and steal Listerine and Scope because they had alcohol in them. Unfortunately, he would drink the mouthwash in the store, pass out, and then get arrested for theft.
4. Duce got so drunk one night he passed out. Jourgensen and his bandmates put lipstick on him and dressed him in women’s lingerie. They left him underneath the ice machine of the hotel. When the maids discovered him, they freaked out and started hitting him with a mop and spraying him with cleaner. Duce looked down at himself and said “What are you hitting me for? I look godd–n good today!”
5. Duce and his band the Mentors got paid $20,000 in beer to record an album. They got so messed up they never got halfway through a song before passing out. To add insult to injury, they recorded the album on a microcassette (the type of tape that used to be in answering machines) and turned in the microcassette to the record label. I don’t believe that album was ever released.
This clip is from the infamous Nick Broomfield documentary “Kurt & Courtney” where Duce claimed that Courtney Love offered him $50,000 to “whack” Cobain. While Cobain conspiracy theorists believe that Duce’s subsequent death in 1997 was due to his admission of this plot, it was likely due to the types of things that happen when you’re a degenerate drunk and proud of it. Duce got demolished by a train when he was wasted and tried to play “chicken” with an oncoming train to impress some fans. Unfortunately, his leg got stuck on the track and realizing his death was imminent, continued to “Sieg Heil” the train before it demolished him.
By the way, Jourgensen’s autobiography “Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen” is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying. It’s one of the wildest rock and roll memoirs ever written and makes Motley Crue’s “The Dirt” look like “The Bridges of Madison County.”
From 1981’s now-classic Soft Cell album “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” comes “Sex Dwarf,” the scandalous album track that that no doubt caused many parents to get apoplectic back in the day when their kids brought home the album due to their love for the smash single “Tainted Love.” The song is legitimately creepy and the hard R-rated video the band shot for the song (with S&M gear and raw meat) is fairly disquieting. That video (directed by Tim Pope) is easily found on YouTube, but I’m not posting a link to it, because you can find that on your own. Actually, I discovered something that is WAY more disturbing … this is an online video created by some twisted genius who synced some Teletubbies video to the song. Yes, everything in the video is G-rated, but when you watch the Teletubbies with the sounds of “Sex Dwarf,” trust me, this is a serious mindf–k that rivals any David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky film. Proceed at your own risk.
And YOU thought the Sex Pistols invented punk rock … Pshaw! Here’s living proof that Archie Andrews … along with Reggie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica were sticking it to the British royals long before Johnny Rotten hocked his first loogie. However, I am puzzled why Archie and gang would hate dear old Brenda so much.
A really nasty piece of garage punk that also managed to be a #1 hit back in 1966. Yes, it was originally called “69 Tears” (snicker-snicker, nudge-nudge), until the band was forced to change the title. Key lyrics: “And when the sun comes up, I`ll be on top … You`ll be right down there, looking up … And I might wave, come up here … But I don`t see you waving now.” Ouch! That organ feels like a persistent tap on the shoulder for the entire length of the song … just enough to make you feel edgy and uneasy. Pleasant dreams.
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