rock and roll – Page 4

Daily Dose: Ponderosa, “Here I Am Born”

(Double) Daily Dose: The Byrds & Green Day

The 8th grade class with which I graduated in 1998 was given a choice for soundtracking its graduation ceremony: stay within tradition or go rogue. For 30+ years my Southern California middle school played “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by The Byrds as their 8th-graders symbolically left the nest for high school hallways and beyond. After extolling the virtues of taking our place within the rank and file of students that had come before us and were to follow, senior faculty members added an aside that we could, if we chose to break with tradition, select a contemporary song by which to remember that year of change. We were then allowed to vote.

Understanding what it meant to the faculty, some of whom were alumni of that very school, our class overwhelmingly voted for “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day and instantly incurred the disappointed wrath of our home room history teacher. For what it’s worth, we didn’t mean to disappoint; we were just too young to want what others wanted for us just because they wanted it. Generation X, Y, Me to the core.

Daily Dose: Bush, “Everything Zen”

If Gwen Stefani was the role model, then Gavin Rossdale was all that a teenage girl could possibly want in an imaginary boyfriend. He was British, incredibly handsome, and frontman for the quintessential 90s rock band. If you lived in the suburbs, this was a particularly potent combination. We little ladies ended many a long middle school week with a sweet slumber party where pieces of paper were folded and a game was played to decide who we would marry, how many kids we would have, and what kinds of cars and houses we would own; I always included Gavin Rossdale. And when I found out he idolized Allen Ginsberg while watching an episode of MTV’s cribs, well, I was done for.

While my lustful teenage melanchology compelled me to put “Glycerine” on repeat, I listened to “Everything Zen” when I wanted to thrash about my room and feel cool. The albums Sixteen Stone and Razorblade Suitcase were permanently embedded in my walkman, and I recall my sullen puss listening to them while riding in the backseat of my Dad’s car on the way to dinner, my Mom in the passenger seat and his cologne permeating the entire interior–the leather of which would creak as he turned a corner too fast, which he always did because he was a Terrible driver with a capital “T”.

For me, Bush harkens back to Southern California winters in which we wore sloppy sweaters with sleeves that hung past our hands so we could twist them neurotically in emulation of our silver screen idols of the era. Bush helped me build my identity in ways I could not know then, but appreciate now, and Gavin Rossdale has had an indelible influence on the type of men I’ve chosen to date over the last 10 years. While it pains me to see how far the band has fallen in recent years, Bush and its enigmatic frontman will forever hold a place in my heart. Rock on, you 1990s gods.

Daily Dose: The Dead Ships, “You Were Young”

Daily Dose: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, “Beat The Devil’s Tattoo”

Must See: Jesus Sons

With their first full-length album in tow, Jesus Sons returns to San Francisco at Brick & Mortar this Friday.

If you love good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll as much as this little lady, then mark your calendars: Jesus Sons plays Brick & Mortar Music Hall on Friday, June 13. Already have plans? Cancel them.

Originally formed in San Francisco, the band is fronted by Brandon Wurtz (former bassist of the Spyrals) who relocated to Los Angeles with his new band after his employer–Charlie’s Place, an SF motorcycle shop–headed for greener pastures in the southern part of the state. While this could make him persona non grata to many Bay Area die hards, he explained the move in an interivew with LA Canvas as a reaction to “the SF government and the pirates” who have radically changed the fabric of our fair city. I’m thinking not many in our musical community would argue with that assessment of the Tech Boom, but this is fodder for a separate article (and something I could talk about for days).

While many bands have embraced a vintage 60’s psych-garage sound, Brandon and the boys are the real deal–not merely emulating motorcycle culture for the coolness of it all, but instilling their music with the motorcylce sludge that pumps through their veins. Their addictive first full-length album, eponymously named, was recorded at Fuzz City in Oakland on glorious 1/4 inch reel to reel tape. The album is rowdy, the music muscular yet spiritual like a prayer thrust into the wind pumped out of a carburetor–textured with grit, and the sweet sweat of the blues.

As much as this San Franciscan is loathe to admit it, Los Angeles–with its dirty desert heat, and hundreds of paved miles–may be an ideal fit for these American journeymen. After all, Rock ‘n’ roll hungers for the heat. Luckily the highway brought them home for one more show.

Daily Dose: The Troggs, “With a Girl Like You”

Throwback Thursday: Courtney Love

Aaaaaahhhhhh, Courtney Love–the train wreck we love to hate but secretly hope never fades from the limelight permanently. Let’s be honest: people like Courtney Love serve a vital purpose within our society as benchmarks for our self-esteem barometer. Loves the world over are a means to gauge how we’re doing on a personal level, a way to compare ourselves to the “rich and famous” and say, “At least I didn’t fall off a barstool and flash my southernmost private parts to the entire MTV audience, crew, and a music icon.” This is the same reason an old roommate of mine would watch the show 16 and Pregnant when she was depressed: no matter how bad her day was, at least she wasn’t sixteen…and pregnant.

I have a soft-spot for Ms. Love, forever the former Mrs. Cobain, because she was omnipresent during my formative listening years; this means I had no choice but to like her (the proverbial cop-out). Her hot-messness aside, she musically explores what it means to be a woman in the world and this feminist angle hasn’t been adequately explored because she often gets in her own way. Okay, she ALWAYS gets in her own way but hear me out on this tangent. Take, for example, the song “Doll Parts” from Hole’s album Live Through This, released in 1994, in which Love discusses society’s perception of women as playthings (dolls), how it forces women to regress into infantile desires (for cake) to get attention and the effect of this dynamic (turning women fake, making them ache). She’s pissed, and wants you to ache like she aches:

“I am doll eyes
Doll mouth, doll legs
I am doll arms, big veins, dog bait
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, but I do too
I want to be the girl with the most cake
I love him so much it just turns to hate
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache
Someday, you will ache like I ache

I am doll parts
Bad skin, doll heart
It stands for knife
For the rest of my life
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, but I do, too
I want to be the girl with the most cake
He only loves those things because he loves to see them break
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache
Someday you will ache like I ache”

In 1998, Love released what I believe to be her second best album to Live Through This which is Celebrity Skin. On the title track of this album she refers to herself as a “walking study in demonology”–an admission that she is routinely vilified in the press, and rightfully so as her behavior is erratic and often violent. (For more enlightenment on this facet of Courtney, I recommend watching Kurt & Courtney from BBC documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield). However, she is singled-out as particularly heinous where the same type of behavior from her male counterparts are often begrudgingly accepted as part of the rock and roll effect. That makes Courtney Love a fascinating specimen in our search to understand the perception of women in our current culture, particularly because she is so self-aware and open if not tragically unwilling to clean up her act. But should she have to? That is the question.

Now, I am in no way (I repeat: I AM NOT) advocating Love as the pinnacle of feminist mystique, but I do commend her on the courage it takes to be Courtney Love in all her grotesque glory; she is nothing if not consistent. From Hole’s video for “Violet” (featured above) where you can clearly see Kurt’s influence and understand his fascination with her to the video for “Celebrity Skin” (seen below) which showcases her attempt to professionally rebirth herself as the movie star rocker chick, Courtney Love lives her life on a public stage and forces us to confront her and what she represents. Whatever your feelings are about this, you can explore them in the flesh when she plays The Independent here in San Francisco tonight. A truly a throwback Thursday if there ever was one.

Dum Dum Girls, “Coming Down”

The Dum Dum Girls are one of my favorite bands. Self-possessed, bad-ass chicks who play New York-tough tunes with a Los Angeles filter–that sort of hazy smog overlay that softens the punk edges into a 60s infused journey through 1980s femininity; throwback music that is purely of the moment. Sure, they sing about bedroom eyes and heartbreak–typical fare, but Dee Dee Penny’s strength as a singer and incredibly intimidating I-Want-to-Be-Her stage presence stabilizes the music and pushes it forward.

These songs may have been done before, but not like this. Well, maybe they have been done like this but the Dum Dum Girls are awesome, and the music is relatable precisely because it doesn’t try to be obscure. It synthesizes the childhood of an 80s baby into sound, which ends up being supremely cool. This is how they attract Academy of Art kids and the newbies at San Francisco State simultaneously.

If I’m being honest, I sing my heart out to “Coming Down” every time–all the while imagining myself to be an actor at the end of a John Hughes movie. Every time. It’s just that kind of music.

Eat your heart out, Molly Ringwald.