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Archive for the ‘Punks’ Category

Berkeley Breathed–Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 2: 1982-1984 (2010)

Posted in Berkeley Breathed, Bloom County, Fantasy, Fears, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Gods, Greed, Humiliation, Nature, Politicians, Punks, Religion, Smarty Pants on August 26, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: A HOUSE-Zop (1991).

This is an EP that came out just after I Am the Greatest.  Released only in the UK, I found it used at Amoeba Records (I must have been on an A House binge at the time).

The EP has 6 tracks.  The opener sounds like a slightly remixed version of “You’re Too Young.”  And “Take It Easy on Me” also sounds remixed (the wah wah seems downplayed somewhat, although the song is still strong).

The other tracks are good songs from this experimental period of A House.

But for me the highlight is “When I Last Saw You,” the 5 minute version of “When I First Saw You” from Greatest.  I’d always liked the album versions’ fascinating concision and almost a capella feel.  This version tacks on a proper song, and it changes the song in wonderful ways.  I will always enjoy that short version, but this EP version is really great.

What’s interesting is that there’s virtually no record of this disc on the web.  Even though the A House homepage is known as ZOP.  The site, sadly, has not been updated for two years.  Although it does answer the question of what Dave Couse has been up to since the late 1990s.

[READ: August 22, 2010] Bloom County: Vol. 2: 1982-1984

This volume of the collection covers a lot of the comics that I know very well.  There are a number of strips that I drew (not traced) and hung in my locker in high school (I wasn’t about to cut up Loose Tales, was ?).  It also covers what I think of as my first era of social and political awareness.

I know I wasn’t totally aware of what was going on, but, via punk music mostly, I became aware of criticisms of Reagan.  And to a lesser degree, so does Bloom County.  I’m actually surprised at how apolitical it seems in retrospect.  My recollection was that it was a massively political strip.   And yes, there are a lot of political references, but for the most part it’s sort of political pop culture jokes.  Reagan gets teased a bit (although again less than you might expect), but it’s not the raging left-wingedness that I fondly recall. (That said, the strip is imbued with leftie political ideas, but they’re sort of mellow compared to now).

Rather, the political jokes are aimed at politicians as a class.  And there are commentaries about political events (couched in terms of local politicians, or, more often, in terms of Bloom County’s nonsensical “scandals” that are based on what really happened (although often the real scandals seem as absurd as the Bloom County ones). (more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 11] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Anarchy, Anthrax, Big Books, Comedy Album, Fears, Fredy Perlman, Huh?, Humiliation, Insurgent Summer, Punks, Racism, Suicide, Unlikable main character, Violence, War, Yuck! on August 20, 2010| 6 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH-Speak English or Die (1985).

S.O.D. was a side project of Anthrax.  It was an over the top (and hilariously un-PC) collection of super fast (and super short) punk songs.  A lot of the “mosh” sound that Anthrax was experimenting with around this time is in place here (“Milano Mosh” for instance).  So it’s an interesting mix of speed metal and punk.

The lyrics were, as they say, designed to piss everyone off.  And they do.  Song titles like “Speak English or Die,” “Pre-Menstrual Princess Blues,” “Pussy Whipped,” “Fuck the Middle East” and “Douche Crew” pretty much give you a taste of the music.

And yet, Anthrax are silly.  So you know that the band is a parody (even if people took them seriously).  And the best way to tell about the serious intentions of the band are by other songs (and their duration): “Anti-Procrastination Song” – 0:06, “Hey Gordy!” – 0:07, “Ballad of Jimi Hendrix” – 0:05 (entire lyrics: “He’s dead”) and of course “Diamonds and Rust” (Extended Version) – 0:05.  There’s also a song about “Milk” which laments the fact that all of the milk in the fridge has been drunk.

My favorite track is “What’s That Noise.”  The band plays the opening chords of a song and this static crackles in.  Billy Milano slowly goes absolutely insane screaming about the noise, yelling at the band to stop playing.  It still makes me laugh, 25 years later.

[READ: Week of August 20, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Last Letters]

Yarostan’s final letter is a long one, but it is justifiably long. And in some ways it makes up for all the weird incest stuff that I had to read.   Although really nothing could make up for that.

The beginning of the letter is taken up with Mirna and Yara’s “prank” at Jasna & Titus’ engagement party. There so many details to include that I’m just going to summarize. (more…)

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Ross Campbell–Wet Moon 5: Where All Stars Fail to Burn (2009)

Posted in Canadian Music, Death, Drinking, Fears, Friday the 13th, Fucked Up, Ongoing, Oni Press, Pregnancy, Punks, Racism, Ross Campbell, Sex, Threats, Universities, Violence, Wikipedia, Yuck! on June 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUCKED UP-Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 (2010).

I knew of Fucked Up from a cover shoot on Chart Magazine. Clearly, they are aiming for major pop success and massive radio airplay.

Their live shows sounded amazing.  And, of course, everything about them seemed unpredictably wonderful.

This is a collection of singles (although not singles in the “pop chart” sense).  Fucked Up released more singles than anything else.  In fact their discography is borderline impossible to keep straight, they have so many small releases on so many small labels.

There is definite growth over these two discs (maybe not maturity, but growth).  The first track, “No Pasaran” is an ugly shouty noisy mess (pretty much straight hardcore). Over the course of these singles, Pink Eyes, the singer, refines his voice and he sounds a bit like Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (still rough, but more melodic).  The music on the other hand pretty well stays in the hardcore mold.  But by the end (and it is most notable on disc two) the band’s energies branch out into guitar riffs and notable melodies.

The rest of the band includes Concentration Camp and 10,000 Marbles on Guitars, Mr Jo on Drums and Mustard Gas on Bass.

This collection of singles includes most of their shorter tracks (since they were on 7″ vinyl).  But on their 2006 release Hidden World (which I have not heard), most of the songs are over 5 minutes, with one reaching 9.  So they’re even fucked up by hardcore standards.  Cool.

This collection is definitely not for everyone, but it’s worth checking out if you like your core hard and weird.

[READ: May 27, 2010] Wet Moon 5

Holy cow!  This book ends on an amazing cliffhanger!  Beloved Trilby is put in mortal danger, and from what we see, I can’t imagine how she’ll survive.  Gasp!

By this time, Campbell is well on his way to a long, twisted epic series.  One only wonders how long he has this story arc planned out.  It seemed so simple at first: a buncha goth girls hanging around a college, with the worst thing that happens is someone puts up a flier about you or your cat goes missing.

Now the stakes are higher.  I’m not entirely sure that I like the path that this story is following.  I mean, don’t get me wrong it is super exciting.  I just don’t want Wet Moon to turn into Friday the 13th or some other kind of “crime & superhero” story.  What happens to Trilby is pretty intense.  I just hope it won’t destroy all of the characters. (more…)

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Ross Campbell–Wet Moon 4: Drowned in Evil (2008)

Posted in Abba, AC/DC, Boredom, Corporate skewering, Fears, Goths, Graphic Novel, LGBTQ, Metallica, Ongoing, Oni Press, Punks, Romance, Ross Campbell, Threats on May 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WALLER NOT WELLER blog.

WallerNotWeller found me when I reviewed Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All.  I went to his site and I adore it!  He writes some great reviews of concerts, CDs and singles.  His current project is the best singles and discs of 1983.  But while he’s working on that, he’ also reviewing a bunch of concerts that he’s been to recently.

What I love best about this site is his amazing breadth of appreciation for music.  There’s been a flurry of activity as he is completing the Top 50 list.  And, since I subscribed by email, I love that my Inbox has been inundated with reviews of this diverse collection: AGNETHA FALTSKOG (She of Abba fame), ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, MINUTEMEN, MISFITS, The B-52’S, DAVID BOWIE, DANIEL JOHNSTON, THE CARPENTERS, JOHNY CASH & AC/DC.  Now that’s breadth!

His reviews are a bit more comprehensive than mine (which I think means he points out a number of negatives that I don’t), but he and I see eye to eye on a lot of these discs.  It’s quite a treat.  And, he’s British, so his viewpoint is slightly different than mine…it’s a good eye-opener!

[READ: May 23, 2010] Wet Moon 4

With each new volume of this series, Campbell changes the appearance of his characters more and more.  Most of the characters now have softer features and big round eyes.  I find it more and more disconcerting, especially since the thing I loved about the book was the utter realism of his characters.

Fortunately the bodily features of the characters haven’t changed: they’re still believably shaped and realistically drawn, it’s just the faces are so weird (Trilby is so soft-looking now, oh and Cleo has a mohawk!).  But at least  the look is consistent throughout the volume.

So Wet Moon, the town, continues to thrive with this strangely intense goth subculture.  Yet this volume seems to introduce an “outsude” world too.  There’s a woman who recoils at two gay men sitting in her booth at a coffee shop. There’s even talk of homophobes attacking gays in the area.  And here I thought that Wet Moon was an idyllic place where all kinds of subculture thrives happily. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 15] The Part About Archimboldi (4 of 4) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Death, Fürst Pücker, Foreign Books, Fugazi, Infinite Zombies, Language, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Punks, Roberto Bolaño, Smarty Pants, Translation, Travel on May 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUGAZI-Steady Diet of Nothing (1991).

Jangly noisy guitars open the track (and then a lengthy silence after a minute or so).  And this loud/soft dynamic is pretty dramatic on this disc.

There’s a slot of really cool sounds (within the framework of loud noisy alterna-punk).  “Reclamation” opens with some harsh guitar harmonics over a kind of spoken verse, but it bursts into a great chorus.  “Nice New Outfit” is quite catchy (even if lyrically it’s very dark).  But by the middle of the disc, it feels like some of the songs aren’t quite as interesting.

Of course, the instrumental “Steady Diet” is noisy and wonderful.  And “Runaway Return” has a catchy noisiness to it.  But the band comes back to a high point with “Polish” and the thoughtful “Justice Letter” (written about favored  Supreme Court Justice William Brennan who retired in 1990).

This record is a cool departure from the first disc.  To me it’s not quite as immeiate as Repeater, and yet it still has some really powerful songs.  I find that no matter how many times I listen to it there’s a few tracks that never grab me, but overall, this is another great release from Fugazi.

[READ: Week of April 26, 2010]  2666 [pg 831-893]

Wow.

The book is over and I am blown away.  I don’t know if it was the set up, or my utterly lowered expectations or the complete lack of connections previous to this, but I had assumed that this story would end (well, actually exactly as it did, with him going to Mexico) but the 30 pages before the end blew me away.  I can’t get over how nicely he tied so much together and in such an unexpected way.  I could not tear myself away from the end.  Wow.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole book.  I’ll do a final thoughts post after I digest, but the ending of the book was immensely satisfying. (more…)

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Glen E. Friedman–Keep Your Eyes Open Fugazi (2007)

Posted in Art, Books about music, Corporate skewering, Dischord Records, Essays, Free Speech, Fugazi, Glen E. Friedman, Greed, Ian F. Svenonius, Nation of Ulysses, Photo Essays, Punks on April 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUGAZI-Repeater + 3 Songs (1990).

This was Fugazi’s debut album and my first exposure to them.  They’d put out some singles before this but I missed them.  Listening to it now, it sounds great, but not revolutionary.  And yet, I remember back then, this was a pretty mind-blowing album.  It’s full of heavy chunky guitars and yet it is underscored by a punk vibe (that comes from the source: Minor Threat).

And yet, despite that pedigree, the album is also quite diverse.  There’s some pleasantly melodic sequences, including the very nice instrumental “Brendan #1.”  There’s some wildly unpreditcable chord sequences and sounds, like the opening fof “Greed.”

Of course before you forget that this is a punk band at heart you get the hardcore chanting of “Sieve-Fisted Find” which sounds like every chanted hardcore record from the 80s (a nice touch).

And yet there’s also great diversity throughout, chugging guitars in “Two Beats Off.”  “The slow, almost jazzy twists and turns of, “Shut the Door.”  And I haven’t even mentioned the two lead-off tracks: “Turnover” and “Repeater” one of the best statements of purpose to open a disc in the 90s.

I have enjoyed other Fugazi releases, but for me this is the one to get.

[READ: April 9, 2010] Keep Your Eyes Open

My brother-in-law Ben got me this book for Christmas a couple of years ago.  It’s primarily a photo collection.  Well, it IS a photo collection, but there’s also an introductory essay that I hadn’t read until the other day.

Glen Friedman has evidently been Fugazi’s official photographer for years (and this is, I gather, his second book of photos).  The book is a good mix of live and “posed” photos.  Obviously, the live ones are more dynamic (and you can really see that way the band is totally immersed in their show).  There’s got to be at least a dozen shots of someone in the band upside down, on his back or in some way not normally upright. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Antwerp (2002) [translated 2010]

Posted in bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, cuppa joe, Death, Foreign Books, Huh?, Infinite Zombies, Natasha Wimmer, Oddities, Poetry, Poets, Punks, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Short Books, The Dead Milkmen, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Violence on April 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Not Richard But Dick (1993).

After the mature Milkmen of Soul Rotation, they followed up with this mini disc (at 28 minutes it’s probably an EP (even the title suggests that maybe it’s an EP) but it’s not considered one).

This album is a bit more twisted that Soul Rotation, although it still offers some of this newer more mature music.

The two most twisted songs are the largely spoken-word “I Dream of Jesus.”  It’s a rant in which the singer (who now goes by the name Arr. Trad.) talks about his mother keeping Jesus in a bottle, and the ramifications that that can have.  (It also features a sung chorus of “Jesus Loves Me”).  “Let’s Get the Baby High” has vocals that are processed so who knows who is singing.  But the title is pretty much spot on for the content of the song.

And you can pretty guess who is singing “The Infant of Prague Customized My Van.”

Butterfly Fairweather once again sings the bulk of the songs.  And most of them are fast rockers. The first song, “Leggo My Ego” could have been a hit (with the cool keboard opening) and “Little Volcano” probably should have been a  hit, it’s very catchy.

He’s also on vocals for some of those mellow songs (that remind me so much of Dromedary Records’ Cuppa Joe.  In fact, “Not Crazy” could have been done by Cuppa Joe.

The final song is a wonderfully hilarious Lou Reed impersonation with simple guitar chords, and a tin whistle!  It’s a very mellow spoken word piece about “The Woman Who was Also a Mongoose”.

Not Richard But Dick is no longer in print (Hollywood Records really gave DM the shaft).  I’m not sure if it’s worth tracking down at this point, but there’s some interesting and fun stuff on this disc.

[READ: April 7, 2010] Antwerp

Continuing with Roberto Bolaño’s fascinating melange of styles, Antwerp (technically the first “novel” he wrote (circa 1980 although he didn’t have it published until 2002) is a series of numbered sections.  I’ve heard it described as a prose poem, and, given his (at the time) recent switch from poetry to prose, that makes sense.

I had read an excerpt from this some time ago, and I found it difficult to read as excerpts.  Unsurprisingly, I also found the entire thing a challenge as well.  And that’s because, wow, there is so much crammed into these 79 pages, and there are so many different points of view and so many unclear events (written in great detail, but trying to piece those events together…phew) that even after reading it twice, I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–By Night in Chile (2000) [translated 2003]

Posted in bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Chris Andrews, Communists, Culture Shock, Death, Demons, Foreign Books, History, Infinite Zombies, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Pablo Neruda, Political Humor, Punks, Religion, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books, Smarty Pants, The Dead Milkmen, Translation, Translators on April 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Metaphysical Graffiti (1990).

You know that it would be untrue, you know that I would be a liar if I were to say to you I didn’t set your house on fire.

You don’t have to be a philosopher to appreciate the joke of this album title (actually that may hurt the joke a little). But the “runes” that accompany the disc are quite amusing.

I haven’t listened to this disc in ages, and it turns out that I remembered about half of these songs really well.  And that’s because half of the songs are really good.  And the other half are, well, okay.

It opens with a children’s chorus which morphs into one of their heaviest rocking (although fairly uninspired) songs, “Beige Sunshine.”  The disc comes into focus with track two: “Do the Brown Nose” a funny song that outlines exactly how to do the titular dance (although at nearly 5 minutes, it’s a bit long).

The single (!) “Methodist Coloring Book”: features Joe Jack Talcum singing (clearly his success with “Punk Rock Girl” had an impact on that decision).  But on this track, he sings with a dark and distorted voice (which pales to Rodney’s dark voice) and is less interesting than his whiny normal singing voice. It’s a good song (and amusing) although as a single it’s less than successful.

I’ve always enjoyed the premise of “I Tripped Over the Ottoman” although I’m not sure it’s a very good song.  While “If You Love Somebody Set them on Fire” is funny and catchy (and astonishingly irritating with the screechier higher register notes in the chorus).

“In Praise of Sha Na Na” makes the valid point that they played at Woodstock and aren’t dead.

Joe Jack’s other songs are the very slow ballad “Dollar Signs in Her Eyes” and the rollicking (and more distorted singing) of “I Hate You, I Love You.”  But the ending tracks “Now Everybody’s Me” and “Little Man in My Head” (which is musically quite a good reggae track) just don’t have a lot of oomph.

However, the final track, “Anderson Walkmen, Buttholes and Howl!” (which parodies a short-lived but much talked about prog rock band) is delightfully twisted.

The problem with the disc overall is the four or five “improv pieces”  They all feature the same bassline, and by the end of the disc you start to cringe when you hear it (especially since the last one is 6 minutes long).  Each one is a mildly funny rant (along the lines of “Stuart” from Beelzebubba, but less focused and less interesting).  Some of them are certainly funny (Earl’s maggots and the “chills me to this day” refrain is pretty good), but they feel like comedy skits that you only want to hear once.

Erlenmeyer Flask!

[READ: April 3, 2010] By Night in Chile

In continuing with my Bolaño obsession, I moved onto yet another of his short books (144 pages).  Interestingly, By Night in Chile is written in a complete different style than the other two titles I’ve recently read (Bolaño is nothing if not diverse).

This is a stream of consciousness reminiscence told by Father Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix.  The entire book is one paragraph (actually that’s not true, the final line of the book is its own paragraph).

As the book opens, Father Urrutia is dying.  But worse than that, he has been disparaged by a wizened youth.  And his entire memory/rant is a response to the accusations of this (unseen by us) wizened youth.

And Father Urrutia uses this opportunity to describe the highlights of his life.  When he was very young he decided to join the priesthood against his family’s objections. There’s a running joke about people calling him “father,” I especially enjoyed the scene where his mother calls him father. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 12] The Part About Archimboldi (1 of 4) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Communists, Death, Foreign Books, History, Infinite Zombies, Military, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Punks, Racism, Religion, Roberto Bolaño, Russia, Sex, Smarty Pants, Suicide, The Dead Milkmen, Translation, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), War on April 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Beelzebubba (1988).

Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl anyway?

Beelzebubba is pretty close to the pinnacle of The Dead Milkmen’s career.  Of the 17 songs, there’s only one or two that fall flat.  But there are so many that rise to greatness.  The wholly un-PC James Brown-mocking song “RC’s Mom” which is pretty much all about beating your wife is in hugely questionable taste, but the funk is quite funky.

The brilliant “Stuart” is the culmination of all of the white trash mocking/spoken word nonsense songs.  And then there’s the outstanding single “Punk Rock Girl.”  It is simultaneously catchy as all hell and yet whiny and kind of off-key.  It’s really magnificent and was suitably lauded.

The strange thing to me is that the actual released “single” was for “Smokin’ Banana Peels” (an EP with that title was released with an absurd number of dance remixes).

“Sri Lanka Sex Hotel” is an angry rant that references The Killer Inside Me and talks about having sex with everything.  It’s pretty bizarre, but is musically fantastic.

True, the back half of the disc suffers somewhat (“Howard Beware” and “Ringo Buys a Rifle” are just okay), but the disc ends with the sublimely vulgar “Life is Shit” a gospel-tinged song that matches Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for faux uplift.

Future DM discs would feature some good songs, but the band pretty much peaked with this one.  I’m so bored I’m drinking bleach.

[READ: Week of April 5, 2010]  2666 [pg 637-701]

What a difference a week makes.  The style and writing of Part 5 is markedly different from Part 4.  It is far more laid back and focuses primarily on one individual, Hans Reiter (who we know from Part One is Archimboldi).

The Part opens with information about his parents: his father had one leg (he lost the other in WW1) and his mother was blind in one eye.

Hans’ father, after losing his leg, was in the hospital, expounding on the greatness of smoking.  (He even gives a smoke to a man wrapped head to toe in bandages–and smoke pours out from all the cracks).  When he left the hospital, he walked home–for three weeks.  And when he arrived back home he sought the one-eyed girl in the village and asked for her hand in marriage.

Hans Reiter was born in 1920. He proved to be unreasonably tall: (At 3 he was taller than all the 5 year olds etc).  And he was most interested in the seabed.  There is much information from his childhood of his love of the sea (when his mother bathed him, he would slip under the water until rescued).  At six he stole a book, Animals and Plants of the European Coastal Region, which he more or less memorized and was the only book he read.  And then he began diving, investigating the shoreline.

His father evidently hates everyone and thinks all nations are full of swine (except the Prussians).

Hans also enjoyed walking and he would often walk to the surrounding towns: The Village of Red Men (where they sold peat), The Village of Blue Women , The Town of the Fat (animals and butcher shops); or in the other direction, he went to Egg Village or Pig Village.  Or even further along was the Town of Chattering Girls (who went to parties and dances).

He almost drowned twice.  The first time he was initially mistaken for seaweed as he was floating in the water.  (After he had discovered laminaria digitata).  He also began to draw seaweed in his book.  (The seaweed connection is pretty thorough as he was described as looking like seaweed when he was born).  The tourist who saved him was named Vogel.  He believed in the general goodness of humanity, but he felt that he was a bad person for initially mistaking Hans for seaweed.  Vogel also talked endlessly about the virtues of masturbation (citing Kant as an example). (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Nazi Literature in the Americas (1996) [translated 2008]

Posted in 19th Century, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Chris Andrews, Death, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Zombies, Magicians, Nazis, Poets, Political Humor, Punks, Research, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books, The Dead Milkmen, Translation, Violence, War on April 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Bucky Fellini (1987).

C’mon, I’m the walrus, damnit.

Bucky Fellini ups the ante from Eat Your Paisley in that the band sounds really accomplished at this point.  The songs are still silly, but they’re not quite as jokey (except for the hit single, but more on that in a second). There’s even lap steel guitar, violin and backing vocals!

Dave Blood’s bass is really something of a force at this point, propelling songs with interesting riffs.  Rodney  “Cosloy” Anonymous sounds great.  And, Joe Jack Talcum gets quite a number of songs to sing: the mellow (and very twisted) “Watching Scotty Die” and the more rocking “Rocketship.”

“Big Time Operator” is a supremely silly song based on a very simple blues riff.  It features the first (utterly wretched) DM guitar solo (look out Stevie Ray Vaughn!) and even showcases a “humming” solo from Rodney (just me!).  While  on the other end of the spectrum, “Surfin’ Cow” is mostly instrumental which is catchy and full of surprising intricacy.

“Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything)” was indeed a club hit.  It’s snarky and silly (complete with a drum machine) and it name-checks some of the most prominent college radio bands of the time.  You could easily have built a good collection of British college rock from their list of who you’ll dance to. (instead of giving your money to a decent American artist like himself).

The Dead Milkmen keep getting better and better.  They’re still funny, but they’ve proven themselves to be far more than a novelty act.  Blow it out your hairdoo cause you work at Hardees.

[READ: April 1, 2010] Nazi Literature in America

I’ve read a lot of books that are, shall I say, weird.  But this one is definitely the most unusual when I think:  what would possess a person to write it?

Nazi Literature in the Americas is written as an encyclopedia of Nazis writers who have lived in North, Central and South America.  Except that all of the writers are fake.  So, essentially Bolaño has invented 30 characters, and created rich, fully detailed biographies about all of them.

Some of them are very short (a couple of pages) while a few are over ten pages long, with details of books/poems published, critical reception and even untimely deaths.   The biographies are grouped according to categories (The Mendiluce Clan; Itinerant Heroes or the Fragility of Mirrors, Forerunners and Figures of the Anti-Enlightenment; Poètes Maudis; Wandering Women of Letters; Two Germans at the End of the earth; Speculative and Science Fiction; Magicians, Mercenaries and Miserable Creatures; The Many Masks of Max Mirebalais; North American Poets; The Aryan Brotherhood; The Fabulous Schiaffino Boys; The Infamous Ramírez Hoffman).

And although they are not chronological, Luz Mendiluce (whose bio I read separately) features prominently as a constant “reference point” and creator of one of the prominent Nazi publishing houses.  She had created a publishing empire where Nazi works were spread throughout the continent, and it seems that everyone had a title published by her company Fourth Reich.

What’s so weird about the book is that the people are fake, everything about them is fake (although they are placed firmly within history) and yet their stories are still compelling.  Bolaño has employed a mildly sympathetic tone to these people.  Not sympathizing with the Nazi aspect, but sympathizing with them as humans.

There were one or two who I didn’t really enjoy.  And I admit that I enjoyed the North Americans more; since I know more about North than South America, the facts surrounding these authors resonated more.  But I thoroughly enjoyed most of these biographies.

Of course, just when you think the book is all the same, the final biography changes everything.  In this one, Bolaño himself appears as the writer of the book.  He writes about Ramírez Hoffman in the first person, mentioning himself by name and getting personally involved in the story of this final, skywriting author.  It completely subverts the work before it and leaves you more confused than when you started (although a lot happier for having read it).

The final section of the book is an Epilogue foe Monsters.  It provides a brief biography for all of the secondary characters mentioned in the main body.  It also details the publishing houses and magazines, and finally lists  a bibliography of all books published.  The amount of detail that Bolaño created here is staggering.

But aside from all the Nazism, the book can be quite funny.  Like the conclusion for Luz Mendiluce Thompson, which ends with her driving a car into a gas station.  The final line: “The explosion was considerable.”

It’s tempting to say that this “novel” is not representative of Bolaño’s writing, but I think that’s false.  From what I’ve read so far, Bolaño doesn’t conform to any style in his books: each book is designed differently.  But like this one, they all deal with South America, with violence, with politics and are filled with humor.  So, yes, I guess this is pretty representative.

Oh, and the translation by Chris Andrews is, once again, fantastic.

For ease of searching I include: Bolano

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