By Kloghole
I do not tend to buy a lot of new music. I scour the used racks, and even when I see new music, I wait for it to appear amidst the other used selections. When I do buy new music, it is usually because I feel like crap and am looking for anything to drag my spirit from the depths of the depression sea. It usually does not float me very far, or for long, before my corpse settles back on the ocean floor in a cloud of disturbed silt.
This was a tough year, as it was for most folks. For me, it had less to do with a once-in-a-century pandemic than being in a workplace where the terrain has again shifted. After some recent restructuring, I am in a program divided between six white faculty members and the faculty of color along with myself, a race traitor. We had to fight strategically to keep a racist sociopath from becoming chair of the department, for the moment. It took quite a bit out of us, and we are still outnumbered. I am at the point where exhaustion does not even seem to apply any more. There is an Overkill song that I have always resonated with, “You Can’t Kill a Dead Man.” There is nothing left to kill.
The accumulated detritus of my life is beginning to weigh me down. I find that I am either locked in a desperate battle to keep up with my workload, or nearly catatonic. There is little joy in Mudville, and I am only propped up by the responsibility I have to others. Music is one means to lift spirits or reverberate the misery of a mournful song and your own tortured spirit. When I am not at work, I sit with my geriatric dogs at my feet listening to music as I work on my laptop, slurp weak coffee, and get up to pee every few minutes. As I read of those who are exhausted or suffering depression from the pandemic, I both sympathize, because I know how it feels, but am also a bit irritated by the complaints. Those who suffer daily discrimination and abuse have been there most of their lives. The stress from this pandemic is accumulated over only a couple years. For those of us who have faced this, or greater, levels of stress for more than a decade, pandemic complaints seem rather quaint.
My work environment has been both excessive in workload and hostile in its culture. Although the number of my students has declined, I still face an inconceivable climate where I work. On the one hand, the white faculty members have openly discriminated against candidates, faculty, and students as well as vehemently declared their right to do so. On the other, they are not very bright—very manipulative, conniving, and incredibly duplicitous, but not very bright. Working with people so dim that they do not comprehend the simplest of data shreds the sanity of those who have to endure such madness.
Exodus.
“Slipping into Madness” is a song on the new Exodus album, Persona Non Grata. While it appears to be about the opioid crisis, it does really feel as though I am slowly, but helplessly, witnessing my sanity and cognitive ability slip away. I routinely forget common words and stop in the middle of sentences because I cannot conceive the next word or what the hell I am talking about. I have no initiative, but have an overwhelming amount of tasks in front of me.
I am drawn to metal and thrash because of the energy and anger it exudes. Exodus is one of many thrash bands whose hooks and grooves seep right down into my very bones. The only thing that keeps the defeat and desperation of working with such pathetic human beings is the anger, vitriol, and determination of not letting the bastards get me down. Recently, they tried using graduate students’ jobs as political footballs by withholding information so we could not process their hiring paperwork. I had to send a note to the entire department telling folks what was going on. Suddenly, info started trickling in, and we were able to get the process moving. I had to bloody their fucking noses before they would act. The selfish ignorant sons-a-bitches had the audacity to say that we were holding the graduate students hostage. A student recently told me that they dropped their groceries and rushed out of the grocery store when they spotted one of our professors. They spent the day in a near-catatonic state. Only music like Exodus, Overkill, Testament, and the like can take the edge off of such utter bullshit.
Larkin Poe, Dorothy, and Beth Hart.
My partner has been buying quite a bit of music lately, so I get to enjoy some of her new acquisitions. I bought some CDs before I had to make a quick run back to Wisconsin. On the four-hour drive, I listened to the discs I bought and a few my partner grabbed. To my surprise, the most rocking of the bunch was actually one by Dorothy, Rockisdead. My partner has also been into Larkin Poe and Beth Hart who both have some catchy tunes. Don’t ask me which songs I like because my mind is so utterly fucking destroyed by the stress of working with assholes, I cannot even remember my name half the time.
Blackfoot and U.D.O.
Two of the few new selections I made over the year were two CD/BluRay live concerts by Blackfoot in 2007 and U.D.O.in 2020.
I did not pay much attention to the year on the Blackfoot CD, and they did not make it overt on the jacket info, but this was a show without Rickey Medlocke. I was a bit taken aback, partially because I did not know that they reformed without him. I knew there was quite a bit of tension in the band. In the early days of the internet, I recall doing some sleuthing regarding Blackfoot and found an expose by guitarist Charlie Hargrett that was pretty scathing of Rickey. Years later, I cannot find any trace of that essay, but it was an interesting look through the eyes of a disgruntled band member. Once I was able to get over the confusion of the missing Medlocke, I was able to settle in and listen to the album. The guitar work was spot on, so the edge of songs were there, but the vocals were missing Rickey’s characteristic punch. The show was enjoyable, and I played it a few times between the video and cd.
U.D.O.’s concert was far more recent and is a nice “best of” selection. I recall seeing Accept back in the 1980s open for Dio, I believe. For some reason, there were few folks there for the opening act, so I was able to wander right up front for the show. I was blown away by this little camouflaged dude screaming out the lyrics amidst his much taller German bandmates. While videos do not capture the nuances of the live show, I enjoyed getting to hear some U.D.O. songs I have not been able to keep up with on CD.
1980s Metal Collections.
Over the past few years, I have noticed quite a few collections of 1980s metal albums. In the past, I think I grabbed some of the early Krokus that I had on vinyl. This past year, I found the re-releases of Warlock’s first three albums that I had, but in burned versions or recently acquired cassette tapes. Warlock and Doro have always been favorites of mine, and I was lucky to see her live, but I have to remember not to stand next to a brick wall at a show. Her vocals were clear, but everything else was badly distorted, but I am not sure if the sound would have been better in a different part of the venue. I am a bit more deaf in my right ear, and I am pretty sure it was from the two shows where I was stupid enough to stand in the same spot.
The other collection I grabbed was the entire UFO discography. Because I have not had the time, I have not worked my way through the albums in any systematic nature. It looks like there were some major personnel changes over the years leaving Phil Mogg as the only remaining member in the waning years. Looking over the band members on the albums, I was a bit surprised Michael Schenker was only there for a few of the first records.
Roger Miller.
For some reason, I found nearly all of Roger Miller’s albums on LP. While I picked up some over the years, I picked up quite a few in the discount bins at my local record store. One record I found while scouring antique stores had a label that said, “Factory Sealed, Do Not Open.” I stored it away for a number of years, but when I grabbed my new expanded collection to convert them to digital, I noticed something. In the corner of the jacket was a little notch that somebody puts there when they discount the album out. The notch was under the “factory seal” clearly indicating to me that the seal was not “factory.” Well, at least I could bust it open without worrying about diminishing the value. For comic relief, I did keep the post-it note, however.
Roger Miller is one of those artists who brings you back to the 1970s and childhood. I have his CD box set, but it is nice to collect these albums. My guess is that the box set is not complete, and there are some little gems in these albums that I do not recall from the box set. I need to work my way through those I have recorded to get them to my devices. I can record while doing other things, but the tracking and conversion of the album takes a bit more time and attention.
In Sum:
Looking back through my collection for this year, I did not have an impressive amount of new music or newly acquired. Perhaps it is because I have not traveled somewhere to fill my suitcase with used finds. SoDak has a habit of dramatically increasing the size of my collection. There is some new music in there, like the James McMurtry I reviewed. I grabbed some old stuff like Mason Proffit, which I really dig for some reason. I also was able to finally get my hands on a Georg Lynch album I loaned out decades ago. It was an album of cover songs, but I recall liking it. Because I had to special order it, and it was out of print, it cost me a pretty penny. If I had not been looking for it for so many years, the price tag probably would have made me think twice, but I am finally glad to have it back in my collection.
Overall, music is a refuge. It is the soundtrack of our lives. For those of us who horde music and invest ourselves into the lyrics and artists, music is an elixir restoring some life force to keep us fighting until the next day. Our struggles are diverse, but we share struggle. We also share music.
Sweet Dreams Motherfuckers
No comments:
Post a Comment