Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste - Lester Bangs [49]
You’re right about one thing at least: all those records are shit, and you might as well have burned all those dollar bills. (Joy Division's Closer, 12 bucks, haw haw haw!) But those records aren’t shit for the reason that you think: those records are shit because they’re all too good!
That's right. All those stupid bands were so stupid they plumb went out and learned to play their instruments, a process as ineluctable as the putrefaction of a corpse. Teach ‘em a chord or two, then just watch those little bastards practice till they can switch off, back and forth between those two chords (then three, then four… never shoulda learned even one!) deft as Al DiMeola if he wanted to play that which he probably will soon! Damn!
Which is why the only hope for rock ‘n’ roll, aside from everybody playing nothing but shrieking atonal noise through Arbiter distorters, is women. Balls are what ruined both rock and politics in the first place, and I demand the world be turned over to the female sex immediately. Only hope. Valerie Solanas was so much greater a prophet than Warhol that I can only pray she might consent to lead the group I’m forming. The absolute best rock ‘n’ roll anywhere today is being played by women: the other night I saw God in the form of the Au Pairs, the Slits are stupendous, the Raincoats are better than London Calling or anything by Elvis Costello, Chrissie Hynde doesn’t count, Joan Jett deserves her place in the sun if not reparations, Lydia Lunch is the Female Role Model for the ‘80s besides being one of the greatest guitarists in the world … the list is endless. (Patti come home!)
But credit must be given to the foremothers: the Shaggs. Way back in 1969 they recorded an album up in New England that can stand, I think, easily with Beatles ‘65, Life with the Lions, Blonde on Blonde, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks as one of the landmarks of rock ‘n’ roll history. The Wiggins sisters (an anti-power trio) not only redefined the art but had a coherent weltanschauung on their very first album, Philosophy of the World. Basically what it comes down to is that unlike the Stones these girls are saying we love you, whether you’re fat, skinny, retarded, or Norman Podhoretz even. Paul Weyrich. Don’t make no difference, they embrace all because they are true one-world humanists with an eye to our social future whose only hope is a redefined communism based on the openhearted sharing of whatever you got with all sentient beings. Their and my religion is compassion, true Christianity with no guilt factors and no vested interest, perhaps a barter economy, but certainly the elimination of capitalism, rape, and special-interest group hatred. For instance, in their personal favorite number, “My Pal Foot Foot,” they reveal how even a little doggie must be granted equal civil rights perhaps even extending to the voting booth. Hell, they let Nancy Reagan in! They also believe that we should jettison almost completely the high-tech society which has now perched us on the lip of global suicide, and return to third world-akin closeness with the earth, elements, nature, the seasons, as in my personal favorite on this album, “It's Halloween,” which emphasizes that seasonal festivals are essential to a healthy body politic (why d’ya think all them people in California got no minds?)
Unfortunately the Wiggins’ masterpiece was lost over the years—it came out on a small label, and everybody knows the record industry has its head so far up its ass it's licking its breastplate. But this guy from NRBQ had the savvy to rescue it from oblivion (in a recent issue of Rolling Stone, he compared their work to early Ornette Coleman, and he's right, though early Marzette Watts might be more apt), so now we got it out on the Red Rooster label, which of course is a perfect joke on all those closet-queen heavy-metal cockrockers. How do they sound? Perfect! They can’t play a lick! But mainly they got the right attitude, which