#WeekendRecommend — Murder Mysteries and Punk Rock Mayhem
Well guys! We survived a month or so of lists and now we’re back to our regular schedule. Depending on how school goes this semester I may add a new column (weekly or every two weeks?) where I start counting down my top 100 albums of all times! Let me know if that’s something you might enjoy reading!
Anyway, as always, here are five things I loved this week that you might enjoy checking out!
A) Sherlock Season 4
Sherlock Season 4 is here and BOY is it a doozey. Duzy? Doozie. Basically it’s great. In the past the second episode has been somewhat lacking compared to one and three but this year episode two BLEW my MINNND. I made involuntary “AHHHUGH!” noises and got full body chills and some points. They also explore Sherlock’s mind in new visual ways which was fun. Episode 3 comes out tonight and I’m very excited. Very highly recommended.
B) Iggy Pop — Lust For Life (1977)
I’ve been reading a book (see the last entry on this list) and Iggy Pop is a central figure in it. So I’ve been listening to The Stooges again with a new historical context. And then, by coincidence, I tuned in to Henry Rollins amazing radio show this week and he opened the set with the title track from Iggy’s 1977 release Lust For Life (with great production by David Bowie) and it just got stuck deep in my brain. The album is really great all the way through with other highlights including “The Passenger” and “Sixteen”. It’s groovy and aggressive and FUN, and I’m sad that the first solo album of Iggy’s I checked out was The Idiot (also produced by Bowie), because it did not grab me in nearly the same way. Also…look at that cover art hahaha!
C) Horns (2014)
Horns is delightfully twisted and weird and messed up and funny. I forgot Daniel Radcliffe was Harry Potter after about 15 minutes which speaks to his performance and everyone else was really solid. This isn’t for everyone, but for some it will hit a really solid chord on. If you liked Detention, or Cabin in the Woods, this one might be for you. It’s not fully horror as much as a dark murder mystery with some serious weirdness.
One warning is that this movie does contain some sexual violence which will understandably be deeply upsetting for some people. I mean, it is upsetting, it’s supposed to be. I think it works with the context, but for some that may be a hard, “No.”
D) Blanche Thomas — “You Ain’t So Much A Much”
UGH! Get DOWN! This lady is badass. Get into it.
E) Please Kill Me — The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Please Kill Me chronicles the birth of punk rock in America from it’s roots in the mid sixties Velvet Underground right up to the grunge era and Nirvana’s Nevermind in 1992. I’m about halfway through the book (circa 1975 and the birth of Television) so I still have the Ramones and everything after that to look forward to but this is already one of the most exciting music books I’ve ever read. Already I have read about one dead drummer, enough heroin to kill the Rolling Stones, and how much punks disdain David Bowie’s art school approach to music (despite his MASSIVE influence in American punk…). The reason this book shines is because it is compiled entirely from interviews of the people who were there: the bands, the managers, the groupies, the label execs, the visual artists. It’s great reading a long paragraph where someone explaining about a massive fight two people had and then the next paragraph being a quote from the other side of the argument saying, “Don’t listen to that guy, he exaggerates all the time, everything was fine.” Everyone is SO biased and so emotionally involved and it’s really fun trying to piece together the reality of the situation. (history major/nerd, I know…) Please Kill Me also has given me the context to understand WHY punk was scary and dangerous. On it’s own, removed from context the music can just seem like rebellious clichés now, but DAMN the lifestyles these guys and girls were living and the attitudes they were spreading are actually terrifying. It’s cool to hear music in a different way now that I know more of what inspired/ angered these musicians and pushed them to such extremes. Well worth the read if you have any interest in music in general and punk specifically.
