Social Distortion, "Another State of Mind"

Thom Wilson will be best-remembered for producing the Offspring's albums on Epitaph (especially the highest-selling independent album of all time), but his punk credibility was set ages earlier, with his name on records ranging from Christian Death's Only Theatre of Pain to the Dead Kennedys' Plastic Surgery Disasters. Like millions of kids who were in middle school in the mid-90s, I will best remember the late Thom Wilson for Smash, but more than enough will be written about that album this week. Let's take a look at Mommy's Little Monster.



It probably didn't seem likely that Social Distortion would last much longer in 1983. The heroin-addicted bandleader with an affinity for guyliner decades before it had a name and a fashion sense that owed as much to the Fonz as Johnny Rotten barely looked like he could keep his life together, much less a band. In the must-see punk doc Another State of Mind, the charms of Social Distortion and bandmates Youth Brigade (whom Wilson also produced) are far more apparent than their talents, even when we get a glimpse of Mike Ness writing a future punk anthem. Live, Ness barely knows what to do with his voice yet, but on Mommy's Little Monster he sounds not only self-assured but downright powerful, the bellowing old rockabilly hero in a hardcore kid's body any punk worth his or her patches today could instantly recognize. Orange County punk wasn't anyone's idea of a big seller in 1983, but the world would eventually catch up, as Green Day, the Offspring and Rancid could tell you, or even Social D, who have walked the line between punk and mainstream as well as any guitar slingers this side of Joan Jett. Maybe Ness was already more confident in the studio, but from Another State of Mind I'm guessing Wilson had to coax it out of him. Rock fans should be ever grateful.

Can't Get Enough of That Wonderful Duff

Can't Get Enough of That Wonderful Duff

1. Duff McKagan, "Seattle Head"
2. The Breeders, "Cannonball"
3. Bobby Womack and Peace, "Across 110th St"
4. Mariam Makeba, "Pata Pata"
5. Green Day, "J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)"
6. Misson of Burma, "Academy Fight Song"
7. Dr. Octagon, "Earth People"
8. The Specials, "Ghost Town"
9. Jesse Rifkin, "Tallulah"
10. Kendrick Lamar, "Swimming Pools (Drank)"
11. David Bowie, "Golden Years"
12. James Brown, "Please, Please, Please"
13. Tina Turner, "Nutbush City Limits"
14. ZZ Top, "Pincushion"
15. Danny Brown, "Radio Song"
16. Têtes Noires, "True Love"
17. The Zombies, "Care of Cell 44"
18. The Cure, "In Between Days"
19. The Coasters, "Shopping for Clothers"
20. Glen Campbell, "Wichita Lineman"
21. Faith No More, "Midnight Cowboy"
22. Ricky Nelson, "Hello Mary Lou"

For Rachel, somewhere between Seattle and L.A.

2 Skinnee J's, "Pluto"

2 Skinnee J's were not a great band. At best, they were a second-rate Beastie Boys and a relic of a time when Sony Records would drop a few grand on some Beastie-lites. In faint praise, they were better than most of the millionaire rap-rock mooks that Sony was counting on capitalizing on in 1998, with a spunky new wave influence creeping into their music. They were also probably pioneers of today's nerdcore, if you think that's a good thing. But at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles this week, I was reminded of the J's and their charm.

An exhibit at Griffith displaying awesome dioramas of the planets has been updated, logically, to throw Pluto into the "...and more" section, reflecting the 2006 vote that took away its planethood for, more or less, being too small. "Dwarf planet" was the ignominious new classification. Factually, the scientists were probably on to something, but emotionally they were all off base, as the J's argued in "Pluto."



Of course it would be 2 Skinnee J's sticking up for the underdog planet, and certainly no one as popular as Jay-Z or Green Day. The J's knew what it was like to be left out. On the Capricorn three-song sampler where I first heard them, they were relegated to last band status, after 311 and Jimmie's Chicken Shack. The only time I saw the J's perform, they were playing in a college pub, with about five people listening while other students chattered, ate and bustled out. Even the fan who uploaded the lyric video I'm using here didn't have the decency to properly track the audio, or to at least get the lyrics right ("Judas of a Chariot" instead of "Judas of Iscariot?" Gevalt.)

As with Pluto, most experts would probably say that 2 Skinnee J's didn't deserve the respect that they didn't get. The beat is catchy if unremarkable, and the J's can't even rhyme that well, but damnit, they're going to give it their best shot. They'll enlist E.T., 2001: A Space Odyssey, Snoopy fighting the Red Baron, Interplanet Janet (from Schoolhouse Rock!) and even the tired old Uranus pun to make their case. The best chorus that they can come up with is "Pluto is a planet!" It sounds better than anything I've heard from the International Astronomical Union.

Pluto was a perfect ally for the J's, who also wrote a song honoring the Brooklyn 718 area code over Manhattan's 212. I'm inclined to believe that the J's are Mets fans, if they follow baseball. Standing back and looking at "Pluto," it's easy to think of the J's as underloved misfits sticking up for another underloved misfit. But on this song, they were more than that.

In his New York Times essay in defense of "our picked-on ninth planet," Tim Kreider expressed the empathy that it would take to justify not kicking Pluto out of of our Solar System's Exclusive Planet Club. "It would be like that moment when the doorman is about to escort you out of a private party where you don’t, arguably, belong, but then someone who knows you taps him on the shoulder and says, 'Wait a minute, I know this guy. He’s O.K..'"

On "Pluto," that friend was 2 Skinnee J's. It was a noble stance, Uranus jokes and all, even if it only sold a fraction as much as 311's terrible song about Jupiter.

Metallica at Voodoo Fest

Loved watching footage of Metallica stepping up and headlining Voodoo Fest in New Orleans last Saturday. Original headliners Green Day pulled out weeks earlier so that Billie Joe Armstrong could complete rehab.

Here's Metallica opening the show with "Hit the Lights:"



Heating things up with "Blackened:"



Encoring with a Green Day tribute and "Creeping Death:"

Idiot Rock Stars

Reactions to Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong shipping himself to rehab last month were even more predictable than the the chord changes on ¡Uno!. There was schadenfreude, most embarrassingly from fellow musicians (Trevor Dunn and the Faceless' Michael Keene among them) who publicized their jealousy with potshots at Armstrong's bank and playing ability. But just as bad was the applause that Armstrong got, for, to paraphrase the most of the cyberverse, "the most punk rock thing he's done in ages."

American Idiots vs. "American Idiot"

Debates over what is and is not punk are fruitless. What I am more concerned about is why we want our rock stars to be idiots.

How many times have you heard it about Green Day, the Beastie Boys, Metallica, Van Halen, the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Guns N' Roses? "I liked them better when they acted like idiots." Better when they were drunk or stoned. Better when they were inciting riots. Before they collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony.

People who applauded Green Day for turning Woodstock '94 into a mudfight and naming an album Dookie chickened out on the band once they got a Broadway musical. Nostalgia for "Fight for Your Right to Party" still runs higher than that for Tibetan Freedom-era Beasties. Metallica were ridiculed last year for collaborating on an album about expressionist, fin de siècle German theatre, but all was forgiven when they opened their concerts this year with "Hit the Lights" ("No life 'til leather, gonna kick some ass tonight.")

Part of it is the still absurdly overused "the old stuff is better" screed, which shouldn't matter to anyone with enough perspective to realize that "Give it Away" wasn't in any way effected by "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie." It's understandable to pine for our favorite artists to keep making great music, but why do people relate that creativity to idiocy?

Is it an inferiority complex to people who found success by following their dreams? Ignorance to the fact that guys who played slackers in the "Longview" video but somehow had gotten two records out on a prominent indie-punk label weren't actually slackers? Just something we associate with being young? Discuss.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts at Coney Island

This week, I saw the Deftones, System of a Down, Cannibal Corpse and Between the Buried and Me. Last Thursday, at Coney Island's free concert series, Joan Jett handed each of them their asses on a plate.



Decades after she's had any sort of commercial success, Jett is still one of rock's most likeable characters. She blurs the punk-pop line tighter than anyone from the Clash to Green Day, and has found enduring appeal as a headbanger, punk, feminist, pop star and gay icon, both as a legend and a cult figure. She is not a great songwriter, as seen by any of her covers-heavy records, but she is a top level showman and interpreter, best experienced in the flesh.

Taking the stage to the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn," Jett and her Blackhearts blazed through an 80-minute show that covered everything a casual fan would want to hear. Other than a mid-set break into some moderately lame new songs, Jett subjected us to an admirable hit list, including "Bad Reputation," "Crimson and Clover," "Do You Wanna Touch Me?" and of course "I Love Rock N' Roll." She stripped the polish off "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and shook the self-consciousness from the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb," establishing herself as a perfomer in charge of her own vision, no matter how Kim Fowley remembers in.

Jett's most underrated ability, besides being the only lead singer in rock history who looks tougher when she smiles, is her guitar playing, a raw-toned weapon with a rockabilly knack for soloing. The Blackhearts, an expendable team of younger musicians who didn't always hit their cues, gave songs like "Love is Pain" and "The French Song" garage band character that emphasized Jett's tendency to sound both DIY and commercial. The band's missteps were all part of the Joan Show, and proof that there wasn't a bum note or a pop chorus that she couldn't electrify.

The Worst Song That You'll Hear All Year

Dexter Holland turned down a Ph.D. for this?

I'll stick up for the Offspring as one of the best mainstream rock bands in the '90s. Purists will still cry about the Orange County quartet watering down punk rock for MTV, but more so was the Woodstock '94 crowd catching up with punk. If Smash was on Alternative Tentacles, it'd be on all your punk bar jukeboxes.

Like their peers in Green Day and No Doubt, the Offspring's punk roots have been dissolving, but still apparent, over the past 15 years. That was until now, with their screamingly-awful new song and video, "Cruising California (Bumpin' in My Trunk)."

If the Offspring's muse is taking them towards Katy.I.Am's California Wurld, fine. What really grosses me out is the thought that this is satire. No one needs to be reminded how bad this stuff is, or how easy it is to create, and watching Holland and the gang drown in something they're trying to make fun of is just depressing. Years ago, the Offspring caustically took razors to punk conformity, alternative angst and a nation of wiggers, but this time the joke's on them.

In remembrance of things past:

The Cult at Terminal 5

"What deep cuts do you want to hear?" My buddy asked me, moments before The Cult's set at Terminal 5. My answer: None. I don't love The Cult. They've got some good tunes, but their bombast, coupled with pretenses of being alternative and hard rock without being great either, hasn't endeared them to this headbanger. However, I do love metal, and The Cult are a part of its history, so I took the chance to see them.



Openers Against Me!, now more famous for their newly-transgendered frontman than their music, played a surprisingly likeable pop-punk set. Having been disillusioned with the genre since Ixnay on the Hombre and bored by the show I caught from them five years ago, where they seemed unsure of what to make of their major label status and touring slot with Mastodon, it was fun to see them evolve into such confident and engaging performers. Perhaps inspired to prove herself under her new identity, Laura Jane Grace charged through the show with Green Day-inspired power punk and glam rock androgyny. Best of all, the band covered the Replacements' "Androgynous," a choice that would have been predictable had they not enlisted help from surprise guest Joan Jett.

Getting on the good foot with "Lil' Devil," The Cult set the tone for a hits-filled night. It was not to be--a gracious helping from their newest, Choice of Weapon, suggested leftovers from Josh Homme's Desert Sessions and were received as politely as one could hope. But rock n' roll isn't polite, and The Cult's most raucous moments ignited the crowd, particularly "She Sells Sanctuary" and the definitive "Fire Woman." Windmill expert Billy Duffy, whose jangling connects Johnny Marr to Def Leppard, rang out coliseum-sized power chords that emphasized his case as one of the first alternapop heroes to reach arena rock status. The band's MVP, without a doubt.

But my problem with The Cult, and particularly frontman Ian Astbury, isn't that they're bad. It's that they're not good enough. Like his idol, Jim Morrison, Astbury is both his band's charismatic draw and its pompous foil. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, and in fact was chatting with fans and signing tickets before the show. But his composed sleazeball stage persona didn't do him any favors. Between enough f-words to embarrass Lil' Wayne, Astbury bantered about how hot it was inside (without taking off his fur and leather jacket), pretended to play three different tambourines that all got tossed to the crowd and never got worked up enough to remove his sunglasses. For a more engaging rock star, none of these acts would have seemed forced, but Astbury's considerable talents don't quite live up to his ego. I have seen Axl Rose, Axl Rose was a hero of mine, and Ian, you're no Axl Rose.

But to be fair, Astbury can sing, and his Lizard King fantasies suited Duffy's riffage just fine. Encoring with "Love Removal Machine," the band unleashed what looked like energy that they had saved up in the last hour, thrashing out their cockrock tendencies like mystic rock icons. For once, Astbury was everything that he pretended to be, and we needed him just as much as his band did.