Forgotten Genius #1: Th’ Faith Healers

Favourite New Books (by People Called Owen)

I would just like to bring your attention to two new books that I think are well worth checking out. The first is “Chavs – The Demonization of the Working Class” by Owen Jones. This book has had a lot of press over the last few weeks, although some of it has missed the point somewhat by concentrating on the word “chav” and whether or not it is an offensive term. This is certainly touched upon in Jones’ book, but the subtitle is more representative of the contents – the idea that the working class has been stigmatised, both by the media, and by the policies of both New Labour and the Conservatives.

Music for the Rapture

As tomorrow is The Rapture, people have been choosing what they want to hear before they ascend to heaven (or in my case, remain on earth to suffer the acts of God that will follow in the next few months for us unchosen).  When the moment arrives and I have time only to listen to one last song, I’m kinda hoping it’s this (it has the added bonus of being pretty long):

Trellick Tower in Pop Video History

Here’s six videos that feature perhaps my favourite building, the iconic Trellick Tower in Ladbroke Grove, and one which is named after it, but obviously wasn’t filmed there.  Judging from the number of times he has featured Trellick it would appear that Damon Albarn is just as enthused by the controversial tower as I am.  At the end, there’s also a bonus cameo from a film classic.

The Band that Went Up a Punk Hill, and Came Down a Prog Mountain (and then Went Back Up the Punk Hill)

If you were to listen to the commercially available records of veteran Los Angeles punksters Bad Religion chronologically, an output now spanning thirty years, it would seem like a relatively smooth and logical progression. First album, the optimistically monikered “How Could Hell be Any Worse?” is full of youthful punkiness, but somewhat short on consistency (although album opener “We’re Only Gonna Die from Our Own Arrogance” is a bona fide Socal hardcore classic).  There then follows perhaps the holy trinity of BR albums, “Suffer”, “No Control” and “Against the Grain”, whereby the band increased both the velocity, the hooks and the harmonies and in the process created a new skate punk template that spawned a thousand-and-one inferior copycats who would improve on the record sales (although not the product) throughout the following decade.

As BR entered their second decade, things were slowed down and the songs became less punk and more alternative rock.  This period saw a move to a major label, which gained them more airplay and promotion, and with that their biggest hit, “20th Century Digital Boy”, but lost them their founder guitarist and songwriter “Mr” Brett Gurewitz, and also some of their more ardent hardcore-punk fans. After this, I kind of lost interest due to the law of diminishing returns, as the band became (somewhat justifiably) comfortable in their role as the elder statesmen of punk, continuing to trade on past glories as their releases became stodgier. Every now and then they release an album which people rate as “a return to form”, but although they may be valiant attempts to recapture past magic, they always seem to badly pale in comparison to earlier efforts.

In fact, I see the career of Bad Religion as almost a punk mirror image of The Rolling Stones. Exhilirating in their first decade, reaching a high point as they entered the second, before the quality started to drop off, leaving them to tread water in their third.  However, this isn’t the whole story, because early in the 1980s there is a strange and surprising anomaly that goes by the name of “Into the Unknown”.

The Last Great Ramones Album

Everyone will attest that The Ramones are legends (well, everyone that I consider a fully-formed human being, anyway).  However, at the same time many will say that this legendary status is due solely to their first three albums, and that after that they merely tread water for two decades before calling it a day.  Others may suggest that although they had their moments afterwards, particularly with 1984′s ‘Too Tough to Die’ – an absolutely brilliant album – that this release was the last great Ramones album.

Even as a Ramones fanatic, I wouldn’t be so bold as to suggest that their recorded output didn’t suffer from massive fluctuations in quality.  Obviously the first trio of albums – ‘Ramones’, ‘Leave Home’ and ‘Rocket to Russia’ – is the absolute highpoint of the career; three records in which almost every single song is a bona fide classic. Their fourth, ‘Road to Ruin’, whilst uneven, is an understandable attempt to widen their sonic palette which still has enough great moments (‘Don’t Come Close’, ‘I Wanna be Sedated’, ‘Bad Brain’, ‘She’s the One’) to make it a worthy release.  ’End of the Century’, the disastrous collaboration with Phil Spector, marked the first misstep in their bruthas’ career.  For many people, and indeed rock writers, the story of The Ramones as good as ends here.

Hey You Loser Skate Punk!

Yes, you!  I saw you over there with your Vision Street Wear vest and your Santa-Cruz Roskopp deck!  I’ve stuck a new mix up at 8tracks full of thrashin’ and grindin’ eighties hardcore just for you!  Now gidouddahere, and remember, keep it old school and don’t let the man get you down!