Nice Place To Live If You're A Beaver--Hockey Punk For The Connoisseur--Puck Rock Volume #1--Johnny Hanson Presents

Yes, hockey season has begun my friends. Admittedly, south of the 49th parallel and west of the Czech Republic, it is not a pastime for everyone. I have lost track of the many times when in the middle of a hockey monologue, my innocent victims eyes begin to glaze over, or their facial muscles start twitching, as their eyes begin darting around the room looking for a stick to hit me over the head with.

Actually I am a hockey player, temporarily retired. Sort of. Technically speaking, I am a guy who plays beer league hockey, not a hockey player. I didn't have to get up at 5 am to get skating lessons when I was six and there is not a drop of Michigan blood in me, let alone Canadian. When I was young there weren't any rinks around and I didn't learn to skate until I was twelve. Yeah, I know, boo hoo. Anyway, I am no superstar and I'm not tough enough to be a good goon. But believe me, it is still an exciting and fun sport for masochists like me to play.

Punk Rock and Hockey seem to go together. The aggressiveness of the music parallels the physicality of the sport. It's best done with a tongue in cheek demeanor though. Today I review the compilation Johnny Hanson's Puck Rock Vol 1. There is also a Vol. 2 only --so far Puck Rock lacks in popularity so there is no Police Academyesque Puck Rock Vol 17. The record is a hit and miss proposition. Amid the brilliance there is a lot of samey sounding unclever hardcore. Basically half the songs are good here.

Hockey connoisseurs should know two important things. As far as Puck Rock goes, any recording by The Hanson Brothers or D.O.A./Joe Shithead bears the punk rock trademark of excellence. So of course their contributions to this album are peerless. The Hanson Brothers (not the boy band or the goons from Slapshot)
fittingly begin and end the record, as Johnny Hanson is curator of this project. The first song is Hockey Night Tonight (not The Hockey Song of Stompin' Tom), with punk velocity and lyrical poetry worthy of the Ice Capades. In essence they truly are The Ramones On Ice.

Put away the Snakes and Ladders
Love Connection doesn't matter
You're gonna exercise your bladders
It's Hockey Night Tonight

Don't want no instant replay
Don't care what the TV geeks say
They look like Ronny Dugay
It's Hockey Night Tonight

Its these little vignettes that allow us a Americans to get a peek at the real Canada, our friends to the North.
This song has certainly taught me more about Hockey and its Fans than any Bob Dylan song ever did. Even more than beer. Incidentally, The Hansons are from Vancouver, so the Ronny Dugay slap may be an East Coast-West Coast thing. I'm hoping he provides a rebuttal single someday. Though I must say that when I see Dugay as a Rangers analyst he looks a like a character from the movie Deuce Bigalow.

Equally great is Joe Shithead/Keithley and cub's hockified version of wrestler/philosopher Classy Freddie Blassie's version of Pencil Neck Geek. Keithley is a hockey fan who also happens to be the frontman for D.O.A. and is probably the Godfather of Canadian Punk Rock. On this track, Keithley takes issue with modern players in the Gretzky mode versus the traditional Gordie Howe player. An inspired idea carried out perfectly. D.O.A. contributes the brief but memorable Overtime. "I don't give a puck! away in Overtime."

Unfortunately there is a lot of thrown together hardcore with little cleverness. It just sounds the same and sometimes the songs just go on for too long. Lots of aggro with no wit. Jughead's Hockey Song is funny, a song about a Canadian Hockey fan and his bewildering encounter with a Frenchman, California surfer dude, and an Aussie. Take shots! What's Wrong With Lumme is another Ramone style winner by Glen Ford and the Piers. The Smugglers' Our Stanley Cup and Muscle Bitches' She Devils On Skates are decent. Itch's old school rink rap Swampwater is also pretty good. I especially like Sweaters' Hockey Sucks, where the narrator complete disses the sport, but in the process humorously reveals how much he knows about the NHL, including the names of all the teams.



I admittedly am a fan of the New York Rangers since childhood, but I am not a fanatic. I watch a game sometimes but since I started playing organized hockey, simply watching bores me. So let me relate to you a hare raising post-Halloween urban legend.

I have a friend, for purposes of anonymity let's me refer to him as "Mr. Slicey". Let's just say he is no Dancing Larry, but as far as non-dancing zealous fans go, he is in the top tier. He is a regular in the upper level sections of Madison Square Garden and probably still working on his public persona there. I fondly recall watching him enthusiastically taunting two 9 year old Islander fans during a preseason game after the Rangers took the lead.

But after the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994 Mr. S. simply vanished. We did not know what happened to him. It was a sad thing, but we all moved on with our lives, as people do. We heard rumors of sightings, but we dismissed them, fearing the worst. Then suddenly 15 years later he reappears, much to the amazement of our small circle, M-Slice reappeared. It seemed to be the same person, wearing a ratty old Rangers jersey and sporting a beard straight out of the Old Testament, or a ZZ Top video. Turns out it wasn't a jersey, but merely the bottom portion of his beard knitted into a shirt. His sneaker were all worn out, as though he had walked all the way home from Manhattan. So what happened?

It turned out that at the very end of this game he was celebrating in one of the lounges when he realized that he was the only remaining fan except for a group of extremely short French Canadians. He had had a bit to drink that night and let his guard down, as he mistook the head of the group for Ranger great Rod Gilbert. They were downing ales and playing rounds on a bowling machine. "Rod" claimed that they had been doing this long before there was a Madison Square Garden. My friend doesn't remember much about what happened after the miniature Rod Gilbert led him into a mysterious elevator that he swears he went into.  To this day he cannot show us where this elevator was. He vaguely remembers cheering at games, taking catnaps on top of Zambonis and has an uncanny knowledge of Ranger statistics. At times he thinks some mysterious giant named Malik is after him. His unusual regular diet of boiled hot dogs and beer gave him a serious case of malnutrition. For some reason he still screams out the strange phrase Potvin Sucks!, no matter what sporting event is played, sometimes even during reruns of Golden Girls. A sad and cautionary tale about the dangers of overzealous love of hockey in America, comparable in a way to sad story of Gram Parsons fatal attempt to become Keith Richards.

But for Canadians love of hockey is a necessary to everyday life. I believe there are secret camps somewhere in the vicinity of Hudson Bay where they do what they have to to deprogram hockey "pacifists". And no better place can be found to appreciate Canadians' love for their national sport than in The Hansons I'm Gonna Play Hockey.

But in Canada
The streets are paved with gold
In my rookie year I'll score 50 goals
I'll buy a luxury condo in Etobicoke
Let me sign on the line, I've got to go...
Mama, Papa wish me well
I'm gonna play for the NHL!!

If Joe Keithley ever becomes Canadian Premier this would be the new national anthem. Read his entertaining punk memoir I, Shithead for more elaboration on this, and the Vancouver punk rock scene.

Oops.....Blogger Ate My Homework

The other day I completed a post and I got a strange error message when I went to publish. Needless to say my post vanished somewhere into cyberspace without any explanation. It kind of freaked me out. I still don't know why this happened and why my draft was not saved.

Posts resume again today, with my fingers crossed. I still have a lot to blab about.

Apologies for any technical difficulties. Your business is important to me.

My Favorite Beatles Cover Ever--Roddy Frame

This is a shortie but goodie. The track, In My Life, is from an Uncut magazine John Lennon tribute Cd from 2002.

I think Roddy Frame takes a Beatles song and makes it his own. No small accomplishment. Aztec Camera had its brief moment in the sun back in the 80's, but Roddy Frame definitely deserves our attention today.

40,000 Tons of Devotion---Message To Garcia--Visqueen and the Unsinkable Rachel Flotard

Picking Up The Pieces Without Taking Them

I wrote a little bit about Seattle's Visqueen in an earlier post, Rachel Flotard's terrific band. I saw them perform at the Bell House in Brooklyn earlier this year at the 30th Anniversary blowout for The Big Takeover Magazine. Visqueen is one of my favorite newer bands and their presence on the showcase was a big incentive for me to take the trek South. I have to say that I fully expected a good performance. I'm happy to say that they exceeded all my expectations. I had wondered how the new band lineup would be live, and I learned first hand that they were smoking hot! Though I had never seen them before, I thought they really brought their A-game that night. Rachel was a complete firestorm, hopping up and down, bashing out one power chord after another in her mighty flip-flops. The whole band was equally energetic. Cristina Bautista, the new bass player did a great job, as did Cellist Barb Hunter. Long time drummer Ben Hooker was his superb self as you would expect. Tom Cummings, Visqueen's other guitarist was not there that night. My lone regret was that the set could have been longer, but realistically, there were many worthy bands coming to bat that night.

But what bugs me is that these guys remain relatively unheralded. Rachel is an undercover rock star that more of the world needs to know about. There is so much crap being trumpeted as art these days that great bands fly under the radar. Commercial radio is so bad, such a far cry from what it should be. These days it seems that it is basically the final product of contractual negotiations between monopoly corporations. The same stuff gets foisted on consumers ad nauseum--you might think radio executives recruit directly from Abu Gharaib. Pandering vs Art. There is almost a two or three tiered music business today and they don't seem to have much in common. Getting a contract with Anti, Merge, or Subpop has become a more valid career move than signing to a major label for many bands. It probably would insure a much longer recording career.

Message To Visqueen is simply wonderful, moving, passionate art, an album with great lyrical depth and musical diversity. I would highly recommend her other albums King Me and Sunset On Dateland. Those albums are full of punked out harmoniously memorable songs. All the Buzzcocks, Cheap Trick, Fastbacks comparisons are valid. But I feel like Col. Tom Parker when I try to describe this. She rocks out hard, but she does not sound like she is trying to simply follow in footsteps of The Who or some other macho band. She brings it with visceral energy, but as a woman, without being girly. Though certainly there are other worthy groups, I think that this puts Visqueen in rare company. But Message To Garcia builds on the strengths of their first two albums and expands outward, with more subtlety and new musical directions. And of course there is a tremendous outpouring of emotion here--the album is raw and confessional, packing a punch that goes beyond any volume adjustment. Non-generic music for the non-generic music fan.

Quite to my surprise, my favorite here is the country tinged ballad So Long. Cello and Piano instrumentation here, plus a pedal steel cameo by Jon Rauhouse. Though there are mostly uptempo songs on this album I think that this is really the cd where really she demonstrates her vocal chops. I consider Message To Garcia to be her crooners album, similar to Jeff Tweedy on Sky Blue Sky. So Long is certainly a good example of this. She succeeds in a completely new direction. It shows what the band and Rachel are capable of, and I hope they continue trying new things.

Here's Visqueen at Rabid in the Kennel...



All the songs are good on this album. So I'll make note of a few here. Summer Snow is a great uptempo number with great cello guitar interplay with a surprising Burt Bacharach flugelhorn interlude. Barb Hunter's cello is an integral part of this albums sound. Fight for Love is an irrepressible tune replete with a full on classic greasy guitar solo. When I hear Rachel sing on this song, I think in essence it epitomizes her indomitable spirit, her determination to keep battling. And since she has been through so much in the last few years, you can't help but root for her success. The recent loss of her father who she took care through a long illness (the album is dedicated to him), vision problems, dealing with the crappy music business, a rotating cast of bass players, and she perseveres. And she gives so much of herself on this record.

The Capitol is another great track a song that fiercely offers up relationship advice. On this song she channels her inner Janis Joplin. My second favorite song has to be the poppy joyous song Ward with the burbling synth ostinatos. Equally great is Tall Grass and the wistful ballad Forgive Me. "Run into you, once in a while."

Polishing What Was Inside

As I've said before, and don't mind repeating, if one of my nieces told me that they wanted to form a band, I would give them a Visqueen album without hesitation to help guide them with a strong musical role model. Consider this: Kim Warnick left her band of 20 years, The Fastbacks, to be part of Visqueen. And Neko Case sings backup vocals on 5 songs on Message To Garcia. Christmas is coming soon, and Visqueen would be a nice gift for any audiophile, or a musical grinch in need of a sonic intervention.

Disgusting Discussions Ain't Got Me Nowhere-- El Nuevo Wavo--Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns

I picked up a Joe "King" Carrasco album on impulse in college at Al Bum's in Worcester, I think. I didn't have a car at the time, so I used to take the long walk there every once in a while from school, past the Olde Lamplighter Strip Joint, The Miss Worcester Diner, running under the disgusting railway bridge with the enormous pile of pigeon shit, past the famous Coney Island Hot Dogs neon sign.

Wormtown Calling

The cover on this album was so ridiculous that it had to be good. So this is the stuff I spent money on, instead of buying the legendary Lynch Mob's Naughty Girl/Pick of the Litter single before it sold out. But in this case I was pleasantly surprised.

It's Good To Be The King!!!

This is simply a fantastic album, a great meshing of new wave enthusiasm with Tex-Mex Mendocino swagger. So much fun the incoming Congress might make it illegal. Unfortunately, this album came out in vinyl format in 1980 and was never re-released on Cd. Or maybe....?

This may very well be the best new wave Tex-Mex album ever. Granted, the field may be limited. Joe has some other worthy albums that I know of. But this one is tops in my book. It's a little heavy on the punk rock speed at the expense of Texas traditionalism. The music is driven by the great Farfisa playing by Kris Cummings, and Carrasco's over the top charisma. Rounding out the band is Brad Kiser on bass and Mike Navarro on drums. Amphetamine Polka music.

Hasta La Vista, Catch Me Manana

The album begins with Houston El Mover a great song, and a great homage to the Sir Douglas Quintet who are clearly a big influence here. All of the songs are unadulterated party music, like the comic Caca de Vaca and the high tempo One More Time. They do a nice versions Party Doll and the old standard Federales also. My favorite is the new organ riffing Don't Bug Me Baby, which my band actually used to play back in the 80's. Other hard driving highlights are Let's Get Pretty, Buena, Nervoused Out, and I Get My Kicks On You.

Dear reader, if this post has piqued your interest you may want to check out Carrasco's web page, where he has for sale a slew of releases and other assorted items of merch. Of particular note is this Cd.

Heavy Hangs The Head That Wears La Corona

This is the mother lode folks. And it includes 7 additional songs in much the same manner. It is also available via Amazon in mp3 format too. So if you like farfisa organ, Tejano music, Sam the Sham's 96 Tears, the B-52's or The Sir Douglas Quintet there is a lot to like here. Hey, I like The Birthday Party and Joy Division as much as the next guy, but sometimes you need to kick back and have a mindless carefree good time. And this is a perfect soundtrack for such an occasion.

Pretty As A Panda--60 Foot Dolls'--The Big Three

The big Welsh Rock scene of the 90's sank in the Atlantic somewhere between Cardiff and New York on its maiden voyage. Too bad. We know about bands like Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, Catatonia, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. 60 Ft Dolls? Often namechecked, rarely heard here. It is a shame, as their debut album The Big Three was released  by Geffen records here in the States. And it is a good album. Not great, but with great moments. Raucous but harmonious garage pop, they feel like local lads made good. I listen to the band and for some odd reason I keep thinking they are form Boston. They remind me of the Neighborhoods. And if they were they would have sold a pile of records over here. Today you can probably scarp up a used copy of this record for under a buck.

The 60 Ft Dolls are Richard John Parfitt vocals/guitar, Mike Cole vocals/bass, and Carl Bevan on drums.

You got to be so much better than the rest....

They are from Newport Wales. The Big Three was their debut album, originally issued on Indolent Records, and later put out by Geffen records to a worldwide audience.

There are a few odd things about this album (an album put out by a big label). First off, look at the cover. The drummers head is down. Did they only get one chance at a photo? I don't think they were trying to pull a Wilson-Phillips here in order to hide the drummers mug. So what's the deal? I also am curious as to why they chose the Welleresque Happy Shopper as a first song. Though it was their first single, I think it's one of the worst songs on the album. It starts off with a promising guitar buildup but turns out to be a pretty crap song. The next three songs are great on the album. I wouldn't be surprised if people heard the first song and said "thanks, but I've heard enough". Usually an album starts out with a strong track to encourage people to listen more. I'm hearing a bad decision on this one, though I'm sure there might be some disagreement there.

If I was a dictator in charge of this album, I would have started out with the song times Good Times. A tuneful song that comes off like a harder rocking version of the Smithereens. With that song followed up by the next 3, you have a winner. Stay is one of the strongest songs on this record, a scrappy classic pop punk number, like the Replacements playing Starry Eyes. Great harmonies. They sound like a bunch of likeable underdogs, regular guys you want to root for, whether to sell records, or maybe just to somehow win over that dubious girl in the local pub. I would be surprised if they were not the best band in Newport in their heyday.




Pig Valentine is another complete winner, a joyful revved up love song. For some reason the shoot-yourself in-the-foot uncommercial title is endearing to me here. I know its hypocritical for me to say that. But for some reason it makes these guys seem real to me. There is an obvious real life story to this song, not just another generic love song. And Jon Langford of The Mekons recorded this for them. I say ignore the title, love the song!

My favorite song on this album is The One. It is one of those infectious songs that just sticks in my head for hours. Like a brash punk rock Septembur Gurls. I think this song is absolutely perfect. You need to blast this in your car stereo. Songs 2,3,4 are enough on their own to merit purchase. But wait folks, there's much more...



Though I have mentioned the pop punk style of the band, there is a lot of classic rock swagger on some of the songs here. There is definitely a pretty big Who/Jam influence to this band, which mostly works. Talk to Me is an example of an aggressive riff filled tune full of Daltryisms on the vocals. Streamlined, on the other hand could have used a little editing. I think if it was a little shorter it would be more effective. It's not bad, with some terrific guitar work, but it sounds like an outtake from Quadrophenia. But that's just my opinion.

But there is so much here to recommend.  Loser is a great tune, with a nice sing-a-long vocals by Parfitt. New Loafers rips along at a frenetic pace with inane lyrics. A good one for the live set. Another energetic winner is the hedonistic No. 1 Pure Alcohol. "The more you take, the more you want, the more you get it wrong". Terminal Crash Fear is another great adrenaline basher, like the Modern Lovers' Roadrunner on amphetamines. "I'm on a terminal crash, and my foot's to the ground. Turn it up, Turn it up, Turn up your radio!"

I think they are at their best when they keep things moving. Hair is not a bad song really, but I guess it's the lyrics seem a little weird. There is so much talk about hair that it sounds like a shampoo commercial. The equally slow tempoed Buzz is a much better song. I think they tried to make an epic song like Oasis here. They would have been better off chopping a minute off this. It's still a pretty decent tune though. There's nothing really awful on this album, which puts it ahead of 90% of the competition. This is a pretty excellent album. And you can get it used on Amazon right now for a penny!

Crashing out and killing time

Live The Dream, Stainless Style--80's Disco Fundamentalist Auto Opera from Neon Neon

Charismatic Maverick Who Was Known To Start Static

Delorean is dead. Long live Delorean. His DMC-12 automobile line may have failed like the Edsel, but John DeLorean will be forever memorialized, originally by product placement in the Back To The Future trilogy, and now in Stainless Style, a magnificent concept album by Neon Neon, a pairing of Super Furry frontman Gruff Rhys and Cincinnati Producer/DJ Boom Bip. Stainless Style was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2008.

If you are a person who throws "80's parties", or are just an 80's maniac, slipping on your Hammer Genie pants for a quick trip to the supermarket, this is the place to be. If you are 80's Amish, refusing to believe that time has passed, Stainless Style is the soundtrack to your delusion. And if you are American you probably have an unhealthy obsession with cars and technology, or you know people who do. I know I've been dancing to this non-stop in my underground post-election bunker since yesterday. I was watching the Star Trek reunion episode of Futurama  where Welshy, the Cymry replacement for Scotty on this show, gets incinerated by the Alien Trekkie. And apparently that is my inspiration for doing a bit on Neon Neon.

This album is not joke. If you played someone a song like I Lust U without explaining the provenance, they might very well say, "I remember this song. I used to dance to this all the time back in 1983." Gruff Rhys, who took a sabbatical from Welsh wunderband SFA for this project croons to great effect on this album. Of course, Super Furry Animals is a band that is hugely popular in Europe, but has never quite broke it in America. I still think that they are so talented that they can do pretty much anything. I believe they have the brains and ability to make an album on a par with the legendary bands they obviously idolize. I don't know much about Boom Bip, but on Stainless his arrangements are peerless. I'm not talking about copying here;
I'm talking about working within a genre. The synth riffs are creative, the beats are constantly changing, something you don't hear often in dance music where functionality trumps variety.

I Told Her On Alderaan is a classic 80's style synth dance pop, with vocodered chorus and hyper catchy hooks. And of course there is the Star Wars reference. As befitting a concept album about failed automaker John Delorean such 80's isms run through the whole album. Both stylistically and contextually. There are songs nominally about Hollywood icons Michael Douglas and Raquel Welch, but in a lot of ways they reflect attitudes and fashions of the day. There are also songs like the Prince homage Sweat Shop, and Belfast which fill in biographical checkpoints. DeLorean's autos were originally manufactured a few miles outside Belfast. Songs touch on themes like desire for fame and power, lust, advertising, out of control consumerism.

Alderaan Calling from faraway Wales

Luxury Pool is a brilliant song with  rapper Fatlip toasting DeLorean as a player out of Detroit, using rap conventions as a metaphor for the auto icon's rise to fame and fortune. I Lust U is another winner, featuring a top notch performance from Welsh artist Cat LeBon. The synth riff on this is just too perfect to describe. Though Alderaan is the clear hit on the album, I Lust U is my favorite on an album of favorites. This album is a great 80's dance album--they really pull the whole project off flawlessly. If you look at the song titles, you might think that the album is a jokey send up, but I think that DeLorean is actually treated sympathetically, and they are trying to seriously create a sonic and visual time capsule. There is an undercurrent of sadness to a lot of the songs, as would be expected of an album about a failed visionary.

Musically there are so many touchstones here. New Order, Genesis, Pet Shop Boys, Beach Boys, Kyrie Eleison, Julian Cope, and probably a lot more beyond my recognition. I can only imagine how much work it took to put this project together. I definitely have a lot of admiration for Boom Bip, and I definitely have an itch to hear some of his other projects. From what I've heard, there probably will never be a followup Stainless Style. I can understand--despite the commercial and critical success, where can you go from here? Hopefully maybe they will come up with an entirely new project to create. I would think with this duo, the sky might not be the limit.



Dwi wedi meddwi'n chwil!!