September 21, 2006
"WHY DO THE RECORD PLAY THAT WAY?"
—"Cold Lampin' With Flavor"
4 RECORDS
Recovering from the Maine Federation of Firefighters debauch over the weekend, I made my way to Evanston this Monday for a tasty throat swab, bloodletting, and antibiotic dose of horse pills. My treat: Vinyl bingo at Dr. Wax, where I found four pieces from my youth.
First, SHOUT AT THE DEVIL (1983), by Mötley Crüe.
This one took me back to junior high, when hard rock was said to induce suicides and pot smoking, in addition to hardcore Satanism, witchcraft, and ritual infant sacrifice. I remember the TV tabloids claiming that Judas Priest and Ozzie were the pied pipers of Mephistopheles, luring vulnerable youth to eternity in Hades. Styx led to the River Styx, while Ronnie James Dio's "Holy Diver" dunked mullet-headed teenagers in the Lake of Fire. What can I say? "10 Seconds to Love" and "Looks That Kill" definitely kick dick to this day, and I must perform the devil salute like Nikki Sixx on a DUI, reminding me of those Tex-Mex shitkickin' rockers slurring "Led Zepplin, ese!" over rancid beer shotguns at the heavy-metal vomit party.
Next, THE ESSENTIAL CHARLIE PARKER (c. 1949) on Verve.
Yardbird does a number on my soul when I imagine him flying on heroin with renditions of "Bloomdido" and "Chi Chi" that have the power to induce ADHD for real in Generation Ritalin, if only they were actually to put this one on the iPod brain and trace the 8ths and 16ths wending and multiplying in and out of beautiful melodic lines. This stuff is what got me into jazz in the first place.
Third comes WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1963), also on Verve.
The Incomparable, Unbelievable, Uncanny, and Irrepressible JIMMY SMITH and His Hammond B3 Organ knock the socks off squares in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," with arrangements by Oliver Nelson and a taste of how the Wolf would win in Jimmy's version of PETER AND THE WOLF. I vibed on this one with the blind organist at the Green Mill's happy hour one Friday, and he threw down on "Any Number Can Win" and "The Sermon."
Finally, a corrective to "The Flavor of Love": IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK (1988), the follow up to YO! BUM RUSH THE SHOW, by Public Enemy.
Produced by Rick Rubin of PAUL'S BOUTIQUE and LICENSED TO ILL fame on the DEF JAM label, MILLIONS truly is a soundtrack for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as critic Greg Tate once said. Armageddon has been in effect, so go get a late pass!
"Here it is: BAM! and you say GODDAMN, this is the dope jam!"
Titles boom right off the spinning slice like "LOUDER THAN A BOMB" and "NIGHT OF THE LIVING BASEHEADS." Chuck D, "The Hard Rhymer," never rapped for the sake of riddling, and when I discovered this piece back in college I was thrilled to hear the long, punchy mouthfuls from Chuck and Flavor Flav spitting about a whole lot more than "MY ADIDAS."
"Posing a threat, you bet it's fucking up the government!"
It's strange to me now that they've drifted into obscurity, their neutron beats taking a back seat as the curious footnote to Flav's reality-TV career. But Flavor was always the Mad Jester, ready to bug you out with his Cold Lampin' freak-moves that were part Coltrane and part Night Train.
"BRING THAT BEAT BACK!"
When my sister first visited Chicago, we went to the Aragon circa 1990 to observe the eve of the Gulf War with a duet between SONIC YOUTH and PUBLIC ENEMY that juiced the mixed crowd of white boho hipsters and b-boys slammin' guitar feedback and overdubbed breakbeats, inspiring a riot that drew eight wagons and many plainclothes coppers kicking ass on the longhairs.
"Rock the hard jams/ treat it like a seminar/ reach the bourgeois/ and rock the boulevard!"—"DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE"
This one should be required rhyming, lest we forget that Chuck and Flav once counseled to "FIGHT THE POWER" and "PARTY FOR YOUR RIGHT TO FIGHT!"
Posted by Benjamin at September 21, 2006 06:17 PM
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