Bo Knows

Bo Knows

1. Bo Diddley, "Bo Diddley"
2. U2, "Desire"
3. Buddy Holly, "Not Fade Away"
4. Led Zeppelin, "Custard Pie"
5. Dr. John, "Iko Iko"
6. The Rolling Stones, "Please Go Home"
7. George Michael, "Faith"
8. Elvis Presley, "(Marie's the Name of) His Latest Flame"
9. The Magnetic Fields, "I'm Sorry I Love You"
10. Bruce Springsteen, "She's the One"
11. Johnny Otis, "Willie and the Hand Jive"
12. The Clash, "Rudie Can't Fail"
13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "American Girl"
14. The Who, "Magic Bus"
15. The Supremes, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes"
16. Jefferson Airplane, "She Has Funny Cars"
17. The Stooges, "1969"
18. Guns N' Roses, "Mr. Brownstone"
19. The Go-Go's, "How Much More"
20. Them, "Mystic Eyes"
21. Ace Frehley, "New York Groove"
22. Primal Scream, "Movin' on Up"

Happy Mother's Day, 2016. Guess the theme.

Ten Songs for Your Next Protest

1. Black Flag, "Police Story"

Greg Ginn is apparently a terrible person, and if this song is based on true incidents, I fear that the police may have been right to club him. But guys like Ginn are why we separate the art from the artist, and an example of how great artists can confront the horrors of reality.



2. Body Count, "Body Count"

Not as blunt or as infamous as "Cop Killer," but also less excessive. Ice-T's messages about police brutality seem to get more important every day, though I'm not sure he would have kept the song's anti-gun control stance had he foreseen the NRA's role in getting his music banned.



3. The Clash, "Police on My Back"

The Clash's third-most-famous cover of a song about fighting law enforcement got stranded in the middle of Sandinista!, but no one who ever made it to side four ever forgot how it turned the original's garage-rock riff into an urgent siren, diffusing all claims that the band had gone soft. And yes, it was written by Eddy Grant, who was only a few years away from "Electric Avenue."



4. Dead Kennedys, "Police Truck"

Chris Rock recently told Rolling Stone, "Comedy rots. Trading Places is a perfect movie, just unbelievably good. But there are other comedies, not nearly as old as Trading Places, that just have references and things in them that aren't funny five years later. And rap's got a lot of that." He could have added the Dead Kennedys to that comparison. Jello Biafra's Anita Bryant jokes might not be funny anymore, but this one of the Dead Kennedy's unfortunately timeless messages.



5. Fugazi, "Great Cop"

Anyone who's heard the Ice Cream-Eating Motherfucker story knows that the guys in Fugazi are more like cops than outlaws. With that in mind, they must have known that nothing could shut down a punk kid like the couplet "I look for wires when I'm talking to you/You'd make a great cop."

6. Le Tigre, "Bang! Bang!"

A Brooklyn dance-punk tirade against NYPD tactics is practically a given in 2014, but the terrifyingly infectious "Bang! Bang!" arrived in 2001 on the heels of the Amadou Diallo shooting. Guess where Kathleen Hanna stops counting.



7. Living Colour, "41 Shots (American Skin)"

Bruce Springsteen has written better songs about policemen (most of them on Nebraska), but none as direct as this 2000 ballad, also inspired by Diallo, which sparked a boycott of Springsteen's music from New York's biggest police union before the song was even officially released. My favorite version is Living Colour's, only performed live but an emotional peak of their transcendent shows.



8. Mudhoney, "Hate the Police"

Originally by the Dicks, though I like Mudhoney's more fleshed-out, hi-fi version (and if you didn't think anything could be less fleshed-out or hi-fi than Mudhoney, listen). Somewhat like the Rolling Stones updating Robert Johnson's songs, Mudhoney gave "Hate the Police" a more robust reading that was still dishonorably scuzzy.



9. Operation Ivy, "Officer"

Of course the world's biggest Clash fans would have a song about the police on their first 7", but lest you think these guys were living in punk's past, "Officer" offered alternatives to hardcore nihilism and punk anarchy--"Tough guy asshole do what you can/Whatever you destroy we'll create it again."



10. Rage Against the Machine, "Killing in the Name"

The immortal riff. This song is so great that we loved Rage Against the Machine for imitating it 40 more times. Morello's Drop D progressions will outlive all of us, and while no one with a high school education would call Zack de la Rocha poetic, his message here is just as relevant 20 years later.

The Clash, "Police & Thieves"

For Junior Murvin.

The Pogues, "Thousands are Sailing"

For a few years after their US reunion tour in 2006, the Pogues would get together every St. Patrick's Week to play a few New York City shows. It was always at Roseland Ballroom, tickets were always a fortune and it would always sell out. People who went every year would tell you that it was always the same show, right down to identical setlists, encores, props and even entrance music (The Clash's "Straight to Hell.")

I'd talk about going with friends, but we were hesitant. Would it be worth it to see what was left of Shane MacGowan, if he showed up at all? How well could these old men still play, three decades and countless rehab visits later? Eventually, two of my closest drinking buddies and I decided to find out, scoring tickets from Craigslist and picking a Friday night show.

What a night it turned out to be. We struck up conversations at the bar with folks from all over the country, who'd flown or driven to New York just for a chance to get a glimpse of the Pogues. The lights dimmed and the band opened with "Streams of Whiskey," kicking off a night of impassioned chants and bad dancing (the jig dancers couldn't mosh, and the moshers couldn't jig, so we all sort of met each other halfway.) Shane, the most unhealthy-looking performer that I've ever seen, was helped on and off stage for nearly every other song, clasping a drink and a cigarette while barking and crooning out of that toothless gap on his face. There was no way to romanticize his condition, but he gave it his best shot, and every note that he missed somehow landed on your heartstrings. For one night, in one room, St. Patrick's Day felt special again and not disgusting. It was as distant from the outside world's St. Fratrick's Day antics as William Butler Yeats is from Troy Duffy.

Guitarist Phil Chevron, the longtime first mate stepping up for the drunken captain, held down the fort like a dapper old pro, getting rowdy with the boys for "If I Should Fall From Grace with God" and "Body of an American" while somehow never losing his bowler. He took the spotlight to sing "Thousands are Sailing," his own beautiful Ellis Island story that offered a hand to the huddled masses while issuing a challenge Reagan's Immigration Reform Act. There may be no better representation of the Pogues' blend of celtic music's poetry and punk rock's spunk, or the brashness and community that makes both of them special. Thousands of us sang along, raising a glass to JFK and a dozen more besides. Pretty sure that some of us were crying, too.

For Phil Chevron, 1957-2013.

The Specials, "Nelson Mandela"

Jerry Dammers wrote "Nelson Mandela" in hopes of getting people interested in the imprisoned anti-apartheid leader. But it was actually Nelson Mandela who got me interested in The Specials.



I didn't know much about ska that predated The Mighty Mighty Bosstones when I read Nick Hornby's music nerd novel High Fidelity. The protagonist mentioned getting an excellent response to playing "Nelson Mandela" at a party, and being interested in both Nelson Mandela--my cool older cousin had insisted that I read Long Walk to Freedom--and in ways that music could get people to like me more, I checked out The Specials' The Singles Collection at my favorite used record store. I heard the song that Sublime had stolen without credit ("A Message to You, Rudy,") the one that Bob Dylan wrote ("Maggie's Farm") and the one that occasionally appeared in crime movies ("Ghost Town.") It all came into place for me.

Even with its cheerful horns and skanking bounce, plus Americans' history of misinterpreting protest songs ("Fortunate Son," "Born in the U.S.A.," "Rockin' in the Free World,") it's hard to imagine anyone missing the message in that three word chorus. Rather than preach to the activists who were already counting on The Clash to alert them to their next cause, The Specials found the kids on the dance floor and got them to sing about Nelson Mandela. Who knows how many of them did anything about it, but I like how The Specials made activism look cool and sound fun. I'd hate to think of how many people are hesitant to get active for fear of working on a team of Jello Biafras.

A few decades after Mandela's release, The Specials sound a little dated. No one will play this song to at a rally to free anyone other than Nelson Mandela, and with ska now in its nth wave and a generation of Ras Trents inhabiting it, I'm rarely inspired to revisit The Singles Collection. But when I do, it sounds more politically blunt than anything by Bob Marley or Bruce Springsteen.

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.

Jimmy Cliff at Prospect Park

Jimmy Cliff is reggae's Bruce Springsteen. His performances are joyful, high-energy marathons designed to keep their entire audience out of their seats for the rest of the night. If Cliff had any cynicism about playing his 40-year-old hits for a crowd of Ras Trents at his Tuesday show at Prospect Park, he hid them under a voice and body that exhibited more agility than can be expected of a man pushing retirement age.



Debuting this summer's Celebrate Brooklyn concert series, Cliff set an impossibly high bar, high-kicking his way out on stage to open with "You Can Get it if You Really Want." Leading with his best-known song, Cliff dared himself to follow his biggest hit for two hours and delivered, familiarizing the audience with every song through interaction, call-and-response and dance instruction that proved he was by far the greatest prancer in the bandshell.

A natural showman and crowd-pleaser, Cliff's setlist played like a Best of on shuffle. "Many Rivers to Cross," "Sitting in Limbo" and "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" ushered out the setting sun, and his version of "I Can See Clearly Now" freed itself from Cool Runnings. In his fifth decade as a performer, Cliff is still reimagining his biggest hits, bestowing us will a beautiful, all-drums take on "Rivers of Babylon" and updating "Vietnam" to include Afghanistan.

As an interpeter, he also took most of the cheese out of Cat Stevens' "Wild World" and surprised all of us by skanking through Rancid's "Ruby Soho" early in the set. Cliff's proto-ska rhythms (think of him as Chuck Berry to the Clash's Beach Boys) make him an underrated punk rock influence, but the master clearly got it, nailing Armstrong and Frederiksen's harmonies like a man who was born to sing and dance.

If you go to one reggae show in your entire life, make sure that it's Jimmy Cliff.

Appetite for Destruction: "Mr. Browsntone"

What is the secret to Guns N' Roses?

Answer: Izzy Stradlin.

Sure, Axl and Slash are the icons, Duff is the anchor and Steve Adler is the Ringo. But outside of the redhead, Izzy is the best writer. He also was the first to leave the band intentionally, but he left them with one of the best songwriting records in rock history--"Patience," "Think About You," "Pretty Tied Up," "14 Years," "Bad Obssesion" and even "Mr. Brownstone." Want to know how a band with three ex-Gunners could be as boring as Velvet Revolver? Because they don't have Izzy Stradlin.



"Mr. Brownstone" rides a Bo Diddley beat into an enticingly strange riff that sounds even more stoned than its narrator. It's a fabulous blend of the most-copied rhythm in rock music and an otherworldly Stradlin phrase, weirder than anything that The Clash, Stooges, Hüsker Dü or Led Zeppelin ever did with the Diddley measure.

The lyrics are a day-in-the-life-of-GNR story that probably left a few casualties. "Mr. Brownstone" is slang for heroin, although everyone that I've met who knows that learned about it from GNR. The chorus ("I used to do a little but a little wouldn't do it, so the little got more and more/I just keep trying to get a little better, said a little better than before") may be the definitive lyric for anyone who has ever lost self control.



Yowza, indeed.

Three years ago, my roommate and I saw a death metal show at Europa, with about five other attendees. The first act, Revocation, were months away from being America's best new metal band, as we learned while watching them honor "Mr. Brownstone" at the tail of their own terrific "Exhumed Identity." Kind of like how Bo Diddley surfaces on Appetite for Destruction.