THE MOST VIOLENT ROCK INTRO EVER? Any time I Wanna Be Your Dog torches the speakers, this question comes to mind. It has nothing to do with extremity of speed or heaviness or explicit content or any such genre-bound qualities. This is about something much more innate and visceral. Can you imagine how forceful this must have been in the studio? I can’t. It’s just too big to be contained, and you know this because even at the lowest volume, it still sounds hostile. Destroy, annihilate and burn, it’s all there in those first 25 seconds. And the best/worst of it is, it’s almost casual. Amoral, even.

Why the Stooges chat this week? Because IWBYD was on the radio, feral as it ever was, and that ties in pretty neatly with a story about the debut Stooges album on Henry Rollins’ radio show. Details below, BE MORE STOOGE.

Week 8 soundtrack.

MAY 9
John Garcia – John Garcia
Henry Rollins – Cool Quarantine 2

Rollins, Quarantine: if you can’t commit to nearly four hours of radio but need some Stooges history, zip forward to 1 hour 32 minutes and 33 seconds of The Cool Quarantine 2. There, you get the backstory about the John Cale mix of the first Stooges album and then you can hear that mix of the whole album. As well as a different mix, it has a different running order too. Which now feels very strange. Is it better? Go find out. I reckon there would be universal agreement about the answer.

MAY 10
Teardrop Explodes – Kilimanjaro
These Arms Are Snakes – Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home
Iggy Pop – New Values
Julian Cope – Self Civil War

MAY 11
The Cult – Born Into This
Thin Lizzy – Fighting
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland

MAY 12
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland
Metallica Monday – Black album 2012

MAY 13
Betty Davis – This Is It
REM – Reveal
Prince – Lovesexy

MAY 14
Miles Davis – On the Corner
Muriel Grossman – Momentum

Davis, Corner: this is what happens when you re-read Lester Bangs, isn’t it? Wild, insightful, high on ego and never less than persuasive, his writing compels you to go to the source and check what you missed, so this listening choice is power to Bangs more than Davis. Kind of Grim: Unravelling the Miles Perplex and Miles Davis: Music for the Living Dead, both collected in Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste, are the pieces. On the Corner still doesn’t grab, but so what. The Bangs route back was worth it.

MAY 15
Prince – Lovesexy

Keep safe, keep the music ON!

Previous Lockdown Music –Week 7