Various Artists, Life Moves Pretty Fast: The John Hughes Mixtapes (Demon, 2022)

By Null

When I first heard there was going to be a John Hughes box set, I pictured a set containing all of his original movie soundtracks in their original forms. I had always loved the soundtracks for the films Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club. I then had a series of questions: Would they be in little facsimiles of the original LPs? How cool would that be? How many movies did John Hughes even make?

My immediate impression was shattered, however, when I learned that the box set was a series of four CDs, or “mixed tapes,” compiling selected tracks from his film made in the 1980s. I looked at the track list and was disgruntled by the fact that, not only were songs not in chronological order, but none of the great instrumental tracks from The Breakfast Club were present. I’m not even sure if they’re “great,” but I am used to them being there. These instrumental tracks are a major part of the listening experience of that album. I then pulled out The Breakfast Club soundtrack and was reminded of the weaker tracks that I often forget even appear on the record. It’s true, not all of John Hughes soundtracks were as solid as Pretty in Pink. As a matter of fact, I only have the two aforementioned soundtracks. Maybe most of them are awful. Do I even want to hear the soundtrack for She’s Having a Baby?

Once I finally got my hands on the box set and started listening, I realized that the people who put this collection together had the right idea. It is a great listen that never really reaches a moment of fatigue, which would undoubtedly happen if one had to sit through the entire litany of soundtracks in their entirety. As far as “mixed tapes” go, each disc has a flow that twists and turns with recognizable favorites and unknown, buried gems that span decades of music. 

This box set is highly recommended. 

And don’t worry, the original Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club soundtracks are both still in print for your listening pleasure. 

Finally, I have a physical copy of that song from National Lampoon’s Vacation. It’s the small things; life moves pretty fast.

Eulogy For a Giant Fucking Talent, Nik Turner

By Jimmy “Explosive Diarrhea” B.

 Do you know what almost never belongs in rock and roll? Saxophones. Like all of my rules and beliefs, there are exceptions. If the sax is played by Bruce Lamont, Dana Colley, or Nik Turner then I can accept it. One of these important sax blowing men, arguably the best of the lot - Nik Turner - died recently.

 I assume that most of the Taint Ticklers know that Nik Turner was one of the original members of Hawkwind where he played sax and flute. His playing wasn't that weak-ass horn blowing of someone like Clarence Clemons. Nik always played jazz. Early Hawkwind had an unusual sound that combined punk, hard rock, and jazz flourishes to create some of the most original progressive rock of the era. It is likely that if Nik had begun his career recording jazz albums he would be regarded as one of the great jazz sax players. He did make jazz albums later in life, although I doubt he sold enough jazz records to keep the lights on. 

 Outside of Hawkwind, Turner played on a bunch of records, sometimes his own projects and sometimes as a guest for other artists. His list of credits is long. I know Turner from four projects, Hawkwind, his solo jazz recordings, his solo space-rock albums, and a wonderful album he made with Youth from Killing Joke called Interstellar Energy (click play on the video below). 

 

 

I first heard Hawkwind when I was in my late-20s. This was a time when I was beginning to experiment with progressive rock. I had come from hard rock and metal so I found Hawkwind at the right time. I was also excited that Lemmy Kilminster played bass on three of the early Hawkwind records. I found a stash of Hawkwind records at a small thrift store below my favorite bar, The Speak Easy, in Lincoln, Nebraska. At the time, I had never heard Hawkwind so I only bought one of the records. The next day I was back at the thrift store buying the other three Hawkwind albums in the bin. Nik Turner helped me move along my musical journey to the jazz, progressive rock, bluegrass, country, and metal loving weirdo that I am now. 

 I assume that because you are reading a blog post you are staring at either a phone or a computer screen. Jump over to the website you use to find new music and listen to Interstellar Energy and some of the early Hawkwind tracks. Be careful though, Nik Turner's playing may prevent you from liking those old Bruce Springsteen (and the E-Street Band) or Huey Lewis and the News records ever again.

Farewell D.H. Peligro

By Null

The legendary drummer of Dead Kennedys died after hitting his head during a fall on October 28, 2022. Peligro had a long history playing in many bands and even released three albums under his own name. While I am unfamiliar with most of them, I intimately know all of his work in the Dead Kennedys, as this band absolutely changed my life. For me, D.H. Peligro will always be “the sound” of punk rock drumming. 

I cannot quantify how much each member of the Dead Kennedys meant to me. Jello Biafra’s socio-political lyrics involved satire that made listeners snicker with laughter, yet also left them heartbroken. His vocal delivery was a vicious attack on injustice and inhumanity wherever he found it. East Bay Ray’s guitar work complemented Jello’s lyrical style with a slashing, psychedelic surf rock. Klaus Flouride’s bass lines were the sound of perfection, tethering the band, and each song, to the ground. Behind all of this was the knocking stream engine of Peligro. He was the backdrop to the drama and theatrics, holding the show together. He could play with gentle hands and subtly until he hit the release valve, cueing the band to explode, as in the song “Riot.” He nailed swing-jazz, as in “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now.” He was able to hold the whole band down in a straight-up rock groove. He also played blisteringly fast hardcore punk that still baffles the mind. Best of all, the band could play loose and free, or be as tight as a tourniquet, often within the same song. Peligro was there for each lightening turn.

Like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, each member had a specific roll to play resulting in a unique and instantly recognizable sound. Also, unlike today, where everything is overproduced, the Dead Kennedys sounded like a band in a room. Peligro’s drums sound like, well, drums, recorded with microphones, not processed on the some virtual-space.

There will not be full-blown articles in rock magazines analyzing and recounting the many triumphs in Peligro’s style, as was the case when John Bonham and Neil Pert died. But there should be. Unfortunately, music critics will simply note, “He was just a punk drummer.” Okay, that’s fine. It is as it always was. However, those who listened closely and took mental notes already know the brilliance of Peligro. We don’t need any validation of his ability, because it was completely evident when sitting in a bedroom with lyric sheets in hand and listening to the music with headphones. Peligro did not just play a part in a radical punk band; he was a member of one of the greatest and most important bands to ever record music.

Peligro rarely wrote lyrics for the Dead Kennedys—that was Jello’s role. However, he did write the lyrics to the second song on the album Frankenchrist, called “Hellnation.” I’ll let him have the last word.

Hellnation’s when they teach us

Profiting from greed

Hellnation’s what they give us

Coke, heroin & speed

Hellnation’s when they tell you

You gotta go clean up your act

You’re the one who dragged me here

And now you drag me back

To this Hellnation

Problem is, few care

About the people in despair

If you help no one

You’re guilty in the Hellnation

Hellnation’s when the president

Asks for four more fucking years

Hellnation’s when he gets it

By conning poor people and peers

Hellnation—got no choice

What’s the point of trying to vote?

When this country makes war

We all die in the same boat

In this Hellnation

Problem is, few care

About the people in despair

If you help no one

You’re guilty in the Hellnation

It’s the only world we’ve got

Let’s protect it while we can

It’s all there is and there ain’t no more

Hellnation—asking please

For a nuclear freeze

So the unborn kids

Get their chance to live and breathe

Hellnation asking aid

For the minimum wage

So the kids of tomorrow

Don’t wind up slaves to their trade

In the Hellnation

Problem is, few care

About the people in despair

If you help no one

You’re guilty in the Hellnation

Mary McCaslin, The Best of Mary McCaslin: Things We Said Today (1992)

By SoDak

Thumbing through some records in the late 1980s, I stumbled across Prairie in the Sky by Mary McCaslin. I did not know anything about the singer, but the cover was intriguing. Falling somewhere between country and folk, the music was very calming, giving me a sense of comfort. McCaslin’s voice was gentle. It was both hopeful and plaintive; it was beautiful, yet haunting. This was especially the case with her cover of “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Upon hearing “Prairie in the Sky,” I wept. To this day, I am incredibly moved every time I hear the song. It is filled with romantic images of riding a roan across the country, through the tall grasses on the plains. The inclusion of the French horn on this folk song is mesmerizing, adding an interesting emotional hook. The strings are very subtle and tender. 

In the 1990s, I was fortunate enough to see Mary McCaslin play a concert, with Eric Andersen, in Denver. This was shortly after her record Broken Promises was released. I sat in the dark captivated by her strumming and picking the guitar, while singing songs from her recent record, as well as most of those on Things We Said Today, a best of collection. The songs about friends, love, and broken hearts fit perfectly well with the outlaw and western tunes, which sometimes addressed concerns about pollution and urban sprawl. 

Over the last thirty years, my wife and I continue to listen to Things We Said Today. It used to be a regular listen, when we were playing cards. More often, we listen to it while on a road trip. The songs on this record are now woven with memories of driving through stands of giant trees on the way to trailheads in Sequoia National Park a couple years ago. We carried the songs, as Mary’s voice was echoing in our heads, as we hiked through the tall ferns under the giant sequoias, marveling at their beauty. On that day, it felt like we were dancing with the world.

McCaslin died October 2, 2022. I wish I would have seen her perform one more time, like when she played at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I should have made the drive to make it happen. I really wanted to hear her sing “Young Westley” and “Prairie in the Sky” again. Fortunately, she recorded a wonderful series of records that continue to resonate with me.

The Feral Hog of the Sandhills

After Larry McMurtry’s Streets of Laredo

By Jack Rafferty

 

when the last of the bison were slaughtered

the hides were piled thousands high

in anticipation to be sold

but prices crashed, and the hides were left to rot

 

the ropes that held the hides frayed

and were chewed by vermin

the old flesh scattered

dispersed to become the land

 

then the crows came

thousands of them

their harsh voices filled the air

for thirty miles

 

people built a town

if it could be called that

upon the foundation of old rot

small and ragged

 

they would bury their dead

without care or ceremony

by a lone mesquite tree

in the sandhills

 

one day

a massive hog arrived 

it exhumed the graves

and devoured three bodies

 

the locals, appalled by this beast

gathered their guns

they fired into its matted fur

and to their horror it did not falter

 

it did not die

nor did it stop feasting on the bodies

at its slow, methodical pace

silent except for the gnashing

 

it ate its fill unbothered by the bullets

and trudged into the night

like some unholy spirit

bloody and fattened on dead flesh

 

a month later an ox killed a mule skinner

the hog returned

accompanied by crows

bloated herald of decay

 

the crows attended to it

like some fat monarch

plucking ticks from its rank flesh

the people called it Devil Pig

 

people soon began to believe

that when the hog departed

it walked into Hell

through a tunnel in the riverbank

 

when it left

the crows remained

the cacophony of their collective voice

drove people to madness

 

the crows stayed as envoys

a reminder to those occupying 

this land born from death

that death is the only true warden here  

Coal Mining Women (Rounder Records 1997)

 

By SoDak

The most productive hours of our days we spend working, jobs which are generally alienating, painful, and demoralizing. By the time we finish our shifts, we are exhausted, too tired to accomplish anything significant. Lacking any other means of survival, we sell our labor power to earn wages to purchase those things we need to survive, including plenty of items to entertain/distract us. The owners, seeking to maximize profits and expand production, regulate the pace of work and control the process in order to squeeze as much surplus from us as possible. Our misery generates their profits. The days and years disappear, as our minds and bodies are destroyed, while we continue to dream of retirement, simply to escape from the daily drudgery. 

The compilation record Coal Mining Women is an important historical document, detailing the exploitation that takes place under capitalism and the struggles of working people against the coal companies. It consists of twenty songs, sung by folksingers who grew up in coal country such as Hazel Dickens, Phyllis Boyens, Sarah Ogan Gunning, Florence Reece, and Reel World String Band. The songs give me chills every time I listen to them. Gunning’s “Dreadful Memories” recounts the poverty and starvation experienced by miners, as the Kentucky coal company hired “gun thugs” to threaten workers who dared to organize. It is a live recording, when she was quite old. Her voice is weathered, yet tender and defiant. I really wish Gunning’s song “I Hate the Capitalist System” was included on this compilation, as it would have fit in perfectly, describing the stark inequality that capitalist growth creates. Boyens’s “Lawrence Jones” notes that there is “one man dead on that Harlan County line” due to the violence employed by the coal company. On “Black Lung,” Dickens provides a haunting account of how this disease destroyed the lives of so many workers, digging coal underground. Companies simply turned their backs on the workers, replacing those who were sick and those who died with new workers. She sings, 

You ain’t even covered in their medical plans

And your life depends on the favors of man

Down in the poor house on starvation’s plan

Where pride is a stranger and doomed is a man

His soul full of coal dust till his body’s decayed

And everyone but black lung’s done turned him away

Black lung, black lung, oh your hand’s icy cold

As you reach for my life and you torture my soul

Cold as that water hole down in that dark cave

Where I spent my life’s blood diggin’ my own grave

Down at the graveyard the boss man came

With his little bunch of flowers, dear God what a shame

Take back those flowers, don’t you sing no sad songs

The die has been cast now, a good man is gone.

Death is ever present throughout these songs, especially those that are focused on mining accidents, such as Dickens’s “The Mannington Mine Disaster.” These songs are written so we do not forget how capitalist companies cut corners, creating unsafe conditions to reduce production costs. Here social murder is embedded throughout the existing economic system. Additionally, as Gunning explains, these mining operations are destroying the beauty of the mountains and poisoning the water. 

The songs on Coal Mining Women also speak to mobilization, resistance, protest, and revolution. It is clear what is at stake. As Gunning sings on “Come All You Coal Miners,”

l was born in old Kentucky, in a coal camp born and bred,

I know all about the pinto beans, bulldog gravy and cornbread,

And I know how the coal miners work and slave in the coal mines every day

For a dollar in the company store, for that is all they pay.

Coal mining is the most dangerous work in our land today

With plenty of dirty, slaving work, and very little pay.

Coal miner, won’t you wake up, and open your eyes and see

What the dirty capitalist system is doing to you and me.

They take your very life blood, they take our children’s lives

They take fathers away from children, and husbands away from wives.

Oh miner, won’t you organize wherever you may be

And make this a land of freedom for workers like you and me.

Dickens, on “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” celebrates the solidarity of a radical labor movement, pointing out that all improvements in wages and quality of life have been fought for, challenging the interests of the bosses. Within this song, there is a recognition that this struggle is a constant one, given the exploitive system predicated upon capital accumulation. This point is important to keep in mind, especially as coal companies attempt to convince workers that they have the same interests. The question remains, “which side are you on”: that of the capitalist or the rest of humanity?