And I’m back for round two… well, in spirit anyway. I had planned surgery on Thursday to repair the meniscus in my left knee. There were a few unexpected twists and turns, and as a result, I’m stuck in a recliner/bed for the next two weeks. So I’m not able to get into my office to record the audio portion this week. Probably not next week either. We’ll see. For now, we’re going to barrel ahead with the written version and make the best of it. Heck, if I get another burst of energy this weekend, I may knock out the final 5 as well and just wrap this little list up. Again, we’ll see. For now, let’s get to those 5-10 of 15, shall we?
Last week I dug into the first five of my 15 Albums in 15 Minutes list, Cheap Trick, the Rolling Stones, the Monkees, Blondie, Duran Duran. This week we explore: Gary Numan, Bowie, N.O.T.A., Black Flag, and Joe Christ. Same deal as before, no ranking, just the stories behind why each one stuck. Let’s get into it.
Gary Numan – Telekon
I’d heard “Cars” and was growing more and more curious about synthesizers. I think I got this album in the spring, though I could be wrong on that. But it blew my mind. This album broke every rule I’d known about music up to that point. Listen to “Aircrash Bureau,” “This Wreckage,” “I Die You Die,” you probably haven’t heard anything presented as pop music quite like this before. After this album, and more Duran Duran, I firmly decided I wanted to play synthesizer over guitar or drums.
My favorite tracks are “This Wreckage,” “Aircrash Bureau,” “Remind Me to Smile,” and “I Die You Die.” Past the intro build-up on “This Wreckage,” the lyrics force you to ask yourself questions. “And what if God’s dead?” “We must have done something wrong.” “Aircrash Bureau” takes me to another place altogether, a lonely place, at that point in my life. Then the beat picks up a little with “Remind Me to Smile.” At that point in life, I really did need to remind myself to smile.
There’s a parallel to this album that’s going to show up in my next book. It’s a significant record for more reasons than the music itself, and it holds a very special place in my mind.
The album also has some really nice quiet moments. “Remember I Was Vapour” and “Please Push No More” are both beautifully captured moods, easy to overlook next to the bigger singles, but worth sitting with.
“I Die You Die” is a missed hit, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t remember ever hearing it on the radio or anywhere else, but it’s genuinely catchy and I love the lyrics.
David Bowie – Scary Monsters
This was an odd time in my life. My parents had divorced, and it seemed like a lot of my aunts and uncles were doing the same. Music was changing a lot and no one really knew where it was going to go. I’d always kind of liked Bowie and Iggy, but this one bonded with me during my increasing withdrawal from “normal” people. Some cool keyboards and guitars too, huh? I really liked, still like, the sound of this album.
As with most Bowie albums, I don’t like the whole thing. But what I do like, I like a lot. On the whole, the imagery and the audio combined into a wonderful package for me.
My favorite songs are “Scary Monsters,” “Ashes to Ashes,” and “Fashion.” “Fashion” is one of my favorite Bowie songs, period. It captured a moment in time perfectly. I’ve always thought it’d be fun to cover it, but Bowie covers usually suck, regardless of who does them, so I’ve never pursued it.
“Ashes to Ashes”, what a great song. When I listen to it, I can see the room I’m sitting in and what the weather was like when it was popular. To me, that’s what a great song does, it lets you capture your whole environment in a single audio memory. I hope I can do that for someone with one of my own songs someday.
And finally, the title track, “Scary Monsters.” It’s a masterpiece of “things I like,” I love Carlos Alomar’s guitar work on this album and this track especially. The song is almost pre-industrial. I love it when English guys sing and over-accentuate their accents, and this song has that too. It’s a mishmash of so many favorite elements of music and madness that I love.
I mention not loving the whole album, but that’s just me. There’s a certain “Bowie” I like. When he hits that spot, I like it a lot. When he doesn’t, I can live without it. But those three songs alone make this album a must-have for anyone’s record collection, regardless of which Bowie you like best.
N.O.T.A. – None of the Above
Hands down, my favorite album of the teenage years, and I still listen to it often. Those of you who were in the punk scene probably know this record, and those of you who lived in Tulsa in the 80s surely saw their logo spray painted everywhere. For everyone else, N.O.T.A. was a punk band out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who “did it.” They made records. They toured. They kicked ass and were the real deal.
My favorite songs are “I Should Kill You,” “Takin’ Away Your Rights,” “Sick Society,” and “Nightstick Justice.” These songs were really my first exposure to lyrics about real things. “I Should Kill You” is about your boss. “Takin’ Away Your Rights” is self explanatory. “Sick Society” lines up very closely with my own thoughts on American society. And “Nightstick Justice” is about police brutality, which we kids saw live and in person at their shows. Cops would harass kids just because they had funky hair and weren’t rich kids from the other side of town.
I wish this album was available to stream. I’m going to post a few live versions and songs they’ve remastered and reissued that I found on Spotify, but they don’t really do the songs justice. This one was produced by Spot, of SST/Black Flag fame, and you can hear it, he captured their energy perfectly. If you’re into hardcore punk and ever see this one in the wild, buy it. You won’t regret it.
There are so many things that run through my mind with this album and their earlier EPs, but one of my fondest memories is a summer afternoon around ’85-ish. I remember walking with some friends from 11th and Sheridan down to 424, a club at 424 S. Elgin in downtown Tulsa. Not a short walk. But hey, young, stupid, and capable, no big deal, we made a day of it. We showed up early. No power at 424 that day, so we helped Larry and the band build a stage out back, and had a show. In my crazy head, I think back on that day like I’m watching The Outsiders. It was one of the best days, or nights, of my life, and I’ll never forget it. It was gold.
Slip It In — Black Flag
I chose Slip It In because I wanted to pick only one title. If the album creation were up to me, it’d be called Family Man Slip’s It In. I consider those two, Family Man and Slip It In, to be basically one album to me, so similar musically and in mood. While Henry is Henry and I take him as he is, I identified with his lyrics, and they backed up how I felt about the world at the time. I’d listened to Black Flag before, but the musical shift on these two is what really made me a fan. I don’t really consider these two, or the ones that followed, to be punk albums, more like brutal rock. Good stuff for a Saturday morning. Greg Ginn has a musically warped mind and I love it. If you ever saw this band live, wow. They channeled something dark and beautiful. Black Flag also turned me on to the whole SST world, Saccharine Trust, Meat Puppets, and the rest.
The lyrics were angry, but often sarcastic too. I’ve always had a tendency toward a sharp tongue myself, not too far off from Rollins’ idea of “humor” on this record and others. I keep it under control these days. But if you could hear the stuff running through my head most of the time, you’d understand why I like Black Flag’s lyrics so much.
Beyond the title track, “Black Coffee” is one I could fully identify with. As a teen I didn’t really do drugs or drink, but I drank coffee like a mofo, and in high enough amounts it really can mess with your head. Paranoia mixed with a little angry edge. That song captures exactly how I feel when I’m jacked up on a coffee trip, which still happens regularly, I love coffee. “Wound Up” is another great mood capture, what a one-way crush feels like: “I get so wound up, and feel so let down.” Another track I really like is “The Bars.” Great guitars, great beat, and I don’t even care what the song’s actually about, I just love the music. I’m like that a lot, lyrics aren’t a big driver in what I buy. I like being able to sing along, sure, but the actual message? Eh, I usually don’t care.
For the record, this lineup is my favorite Black Flag lineup: Greg, Henry, Bill, and Kira. I still get tensed up just listening to it now. Good times.
Joe Christ – Essential Christ
I chose this “album” because it’s a compilation of Joe Christ’s work. Before that, it was all 45s and EPs, so Essential Christ works. Joe Christ was a musician who really influenced how I do what I do, musically. I was first turned on to him in Tulsa in the early 80s, saw him play live for the first time as “Joe Danger” with Los Reactors. I remember my dad and I at Cain’s Ballroom watching them open for Bow Wow Wow. Fun night, and another eye-opener for me. Joe was indie before indie was cool. Over the years he went from Los Reactors to G-Spot, then from Joe Danger to Joe Christ and the Healing Faith, ran for Governor of Texas, all of it. He’s the one who exposed me to just doing it yourself, whatever “it” might be. I never would have found A&R in Dallas, or realized how easy it actually is to put out a record, if it weren’t for Joe. Unfortunately, Joe passed away recently. I wrote a full post about his influence on me not too long ago, [link], if you want the longer version of that story.
I wish there was a better compilation out there. This one doesn’t include any Los Reactors songs, and those were a big part of his musical journey. So I’m going to include a couple of them in the Spotify list, though good luck finding Joe on Spotify at all, he passed away before streaming really took off, and his catalog is still in a bit of limbo. My favorite Joe-related songs: “Dead in the Suburbs,” “Pregnant Girls,” and “Be a Zombie” by Los Reactors, “Poor Little Rich Girl” by G-Spot, “Wonderful Life” by Joe Christ & the Healing Faith, and “All Dressed Up” and “Time” by Joe Christ & Bigger Than God.
His sense of humor and mine were always very similar, and songs like “Pregnant Girls” and “Poor Little Rich Girl” capture that well. Same with “Dead in the Suburbs,” and the music on that one is classic too, from the singalong chorus to the solo. “Be a Zombie”, hey, there are those thoughts I have about the corporate world showing up again. The Joe Christ-branded songs bring back fun memories of the movies he made, and it cracks me up matching the songs to the scenes. He really wrote catchy, happy-sounding songs, it was the context and subject matter that made them so “wrong.”
I miss Joe. We need more people like him in entertainment.
That’s five more down, and if you’re noticing a theme, yeah, this batch got a little darker, a little louder, and a lot more “make it yourself” than round one. Numan, Bowie, N.O.T.A., Black Flag, Joe, they all pushed me somewhere different, and looking back, I don’t think it’s a coincidence they landed together.
You guys have a good weekend. I’ll be back to post the final 5 soon.
Jeff
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