These Hunx vids are always hilarious and queer as fuck, but what else would you expect? If they weren’t, it would be like seeing a bloodless Tarantino flick! For those unfamiliar with Hunx, you may have heard this number in a Lens Crafters ad. THAT WAS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT!
Enjoy
As you all should know I have championed Michael Azzerad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life as one of the finest books on music and particularly 80s underground music. Many of my favorite bands are chronicled here and I’ve seen a good chunk of them live. Reading all of their stories and the historical background Azzerad shares with us truly inspired me in various ways. Being a massive fan/supporter of several modern underground bands I have considered writing my own little ditty. Now, how would I go about this? Save the obvious dedicated work of researching, interviewing, writing, etc. I’m not referring to that. I mean how would I tell a general story with an overall theme like Azzerad does? Which bands would I choose? If I leaned more towards my favorites would I be featuring artists with too many similarities, i.e. Garage Rock sound? Is it too soon? Most of these bands have not broken up or jumped to major labels or what have you, so their stories haven’t really ended like those in OBCBYL. He also had years behind him to observe the influence of the groups he was studying and the fact that the era he was focusing on was the first era of a unified, anti-corporate, underground. I’m not really looking for someone to tell me what to write or how to write, I guess these are more like questions I’m asking myself. Either way, what are some bands you would like to read about or think is important enough to be chronicled?
Kim Basinger circa 1989. I was watching Batman and it gave me the idea.
Full Title: The Shield Around the K
Director: Heather Rose Dominic
Year: 2000
Comments:
The title says it all. The metaphorical shield truly represented K’s mythical way of battling the corporate ogre in a unique and highly confrontational manner. For those sad souls out there that are unfamiliar with K, here’s a brief breakdown. K was and still is a defiantly and charismatically independent label; one of the greatest models for how an indepedent label can successfully operate. Calvin Johnson (K founder and Beat Happening frontman) challenged his audience and contemporaries by creating and documenting music that was unabashedly simple, coy, and as far away as possible from the mainstream. These kids challenged the mold of expecation of what a Punk band should look, sound, or act like. By making poppy, “twee,” love rock (as some call it), artists like Beat Happening distanced themselves from not only the corporate world, but also the oft-macho hardcore scene, which was dominating underground music at the time. All in all, this doc does a great job of articulating this important aspect of K Records as well as offering some great archive footage, interviews, and music videos and ultimately a detailed, informative backgound of said topic. One thing I (sorta) didn’t like was the fact that the film focused too much on Beat Happening; after all it was supposed to be about the K label and not about Beat Happening solely. Then again, they and their history are obviously vital to the K tale and since they are one of my all time favorite bands, I don’t mind seeing them on screen. Lastly, this doc features various key figures including, Ian Mackaye, Gerad Cosloy, Slim Moon, John Foster, amongst others. So, if you dig cutting edge (well, then cutting edge) Punk Rock or want to learn more about seminal, underground music then grab some black candy and check it out.
Grade: B+
1) Black Lips
2) Jay Reatard
3) King Khan
4) Mark Sultan
5) No Age
6) Box Elders
7) Hunx and His Punx
8) Walkmen (for Glen)
9) Animal Collective
10) Bradford Cox
11) Harlem
12) Nobunny
13) Girls
14) Pains of Being Pure At Heart
15) Almigthy Defenders
16) Wavves
We feature many artists here, some far more than others, but these very few guys hold the highly prestigious title of “honorary klaymers,” even if they don’t know it.
Chris
I’m taking a vacation as recommended by The Young Veins. They ordered me to a nice get-a-way. Hopefully, everyone likes the new theme?
I really dig Thompson’s no bullshit style of writing. He told exactly what he felt and wasn’t afraid to include detail and perspective down to minutiae. That said, he really tired this approach. Ho, ho. I will say some of his phrases are money. Getting to his books: Fear and Loathing was interesting as fuck to start, but had me losing interest toward the end of the tale. Better Than Sex was witty, but had a lot of fluff that maybe only political junkies appreciate? Hey Rube has a lot of interesting columns and some flat-out uninteresting ones. His rant on eliminating the pitcher position was gold whereas his schpeel on the XFL was merely average. He’s good in small doses. A nice read on occasion. I give him a B.
Author: Carl Jung (published as C.G. Young)
Full Title: Psychology and Religion
Year: 1938
Comments:
Well, here’s a rather unique addition for our little Subversive Book Joint. The broad topics of Psychology and Religion have barey (if at all) entered the sphere of Book Club reviews and what other better way to kick off this occasion than with Psych’s Spock, Carl Jung! Jung, unlike his mentor, Sigmund Freud, focused less on the role of sex in our psyche and more on shadows, archetypes, and all that jazz. As you can probably guess my knowledge of Psychology is very limited to a couple of general psych courses, so much of this work was a bit too “heady” for me, but I appreciated delving into deep thought with Jung’s musings. Specifically, I dig his theory that it is our thoughts that are actually the most dangerous elements in life and not things like torandos and nuclear bombs. Sit on that for a while…. Overall, I like the way Jung isn’t dogmatic with his approaches, like most others are.
I’m not going to grade this because I do not feel like I am in any position to judge it as a “good” or “bad” book, but I enjoyed doing a little exploring.
Chris
