DJ RJ's ModCast

Don’t judge me! You have no right to judge me!

I will argue this in the simplest way possible — it is well-established among people who study these things that suedeheads listened to glam rock, Slade was at one time promoted as a Skinhead band, and anybody who fails to see the musical evolution from The Who’s “My Generation” to Vox Pop’s “Just Like Your Mom” is only fooling themselves.

That said, is there anything better to scrub down a kitchen during the waning of your annual winter depression than Glam & Punk Rock? No, no, there really isn’t. You can try and argue with me, but you’ll be wrong. How do i know? It’s my podcast, and I said so. So :-p

Be glad I didn’t break out the Guns N’ Roses this week (as I could have easily reasoned their inclusion in this week’s cast — I’ve already included The Germs and Vox Pop, and Vox Pop included Don Bolles’ then-girlfriend Mary “Dinah Cancar” Simms, who not only briefly dated Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue, but who is also included in the thank-yous on Appetite For Destruction, along with her and Bolles’ later band, 45 Grave), and be glad I spared you the Rozz Williams (which I have been listening to a lot of this week, for some reason I can’t figure out — and who’s music I’d be able to reason into here not only because 45 Grave gets on nod on Christian Death’s first album, only Theatre of Pain, but also because Don Bolles is featured in the last known photo taken of Rozz Williams), and be glad I spared you This Is Where the Fish Lives (which is my own noise project, and which I would have reasoned into this by pointing out that I once slept on Don Bolles’ couch) — no, this is punk rock and glam at its … well, maybe not at its finest, but at its loudest, its most enthusiastic, and its least intelligent, or (as much as I love Marc Bolan) at least its least comprehensible.

2010-03-01
Slade – Get Down, Get With It
MC5 – Kick Out the Jams
The Stooges – T.V. Eye
Jayne County – Everyone’s An Asshole But Me
Sweet – Wig Wam Bam
Stiv Bators – Swingin’ A-Go-Go
Pansy Division – On Any Other Day (<-- and be glad I spared you all "Bill & Ted's Homosexual Adventure", because the last thing I need is somebody e-mailing me, telling me that they got fired for listening to this at work)
The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again
The Germs - Forming
Vox Pop - Just Like Your Mom
New York Dolls - Trash
Cuddly Toys - You Keep Me Hangin' On
Raped - Moving Target
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Love Comes In Spurts
Rocket From the Tombs - Sonic Reducer
Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missle F1-11
T Rex - Funky London Childhood

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One of the greatest influences on my sense of identity and how I relate to art I both enjoy and create has been Derek Jarman. There used to be a video rental in this town that was the only place I could rent his films (until I started collecting them on DVD, that is), and of the “great directors” have stuff in all sorts of the categories that Liberty Street Video would put arrange their videos, while others only had things in one or two sections. Jarman was a “one or two sections” director, much like another one of my favourite (though not nearly as influential) directors, John Waters. All of John Waters’ films at Liberty Street you could find under “cult” (this was also the only place I’ve ever seen legit copies of Multiple Maniacs and Mondo Trasho available for rent); Derek Jarman’s films were placed either under “Foreign – UK & Ireland” or under “Queer Interest”, and that, I think, sums up his film career as a director in as few words as possible while still making it clear that there may be more to it.

Derek Jarman is what happens when painters are given a Super 8 camera by a friend and get it in their head that they can make feature-length films; and I mean this as a great compliment. The first film of his that I ever saw was Jubilee, and the experience had this paradoxical quality of both opening my eyes to “Punk” in a way I’d never fathomed before, and at the same time summing up my own thoughts on history and culture in a way that I could make sense out of.

As I noted, he was a painter before he started making films, and most child psychologists tend to agree that when a child is drawing any kind of picture, they’re drawing an unconscious self-portrait in allegory. There’s this innocent quality to many of his films, and at the same time, you get the feeling that even when he’s giving us biographical film-portraits of famopus figures passed, that this is an intensely personal look at Jarman’s own self.

His creative process danced freely between careful planning and spontaneous improvisation. Jubilee was both filmed and written over the course of two weeks, the majority of the script was sparse, save for a few monologues that Jarman had to use, but every pre-production choice in casting, every second of editing, was all very meticulous and the whole project took roughly a year and a half to complete, for example. His creative process was also heavily influenced by those who worked with him, and he was just as likely to take script ideas from a cameraman, or costuming and set ideas from an actor as he was to use his own.

Had an AIDS-related death not come to him in 1994, Derek Jarman would have had a sixty-eighth birthday yesterday, 31 January — but I’d rather not dwell on sadness, but instead celebrate his life.

You see, Jarman also did a handful of music videos in his time, and so that’s part of what’s populating things this week — the other part is music from four of his films (Jubilee, Caravaggio, Edward II and The Garden). Just to keep things sounding interesting, I threw in a couple of covers to fill things out.

2010-02-01
Sexgang – At Your Own Risk
Suzi Pinns – Rule Britannia
Carter USM – Panic
The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead
Pet Shop Boys – Rent
Marc Almond – Tenderness Is a Weakness
Marianne Faithful – Broken English
Annie Lennox – Every Time We Say Good-bye
Simon Fisher-Tuirner – All Roads Lead to Rome
Suzi Pinns – Jerusalem
Chumbawamba – Song for Derek Jarman
The Garden – Think Pink (originally from FUNNY FACE)

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I’ve been shaking a cold and too congested to even think until earlier today. OK, I may have been coherent enough to draw penises, but if you’re a personal friend of mine, that makes total sense to you.

Hre’s this week’s set list, and tomorrow, i am heading down to Direct Hits for New Year’s Eve — where I will not be DJin or selling top-quality crap, but will instead be drinking of top-quality booze and wondering why more Mod men don’t at least admit that they’re bisexual (as I am often fated to wonder; but hey, it’s better than going to the “gay night” and being hit on by lesbians and The Straight Guy Hunting Down a “Cute Lesbian” for his “Curious” Girlfriend).

 
right-click (on a PC) or double-click (on a Mac) to download

2009-12-28
France Gall – Jazz A Go Go
Violent Femmes – Gone Daddy Gone
John’s Children – Come And Play With Me In the Garden
Jacques Dutronc – Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi
The Creation – Biff Bang Pow!
The Prisoners – A Taste of Pink
Radio Birdman – Burn My Eye
The Loons – Getting Better
The King Kongs – Leave Me Alone
The Love Me Nots – Heart On a Chain
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Deanna
DMZ – Rosalyn
Jefferson Airplane – Tobacco Road
The Solarflares – Hold On
Sharon Tandy – Daughter of the Sun
The Lipstick Killers – Hindu Gods of Love
Jayne County – I’m In Love With Dusty Springfield
Gate Ball – You Really Got Me

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As much as it shames me to admit this, there isn’t really any excuse for this to be as late as it is, but it is. There are a few reasons I could use, but honestly, it just feels like a cop-out, as perfectly valid as those reasons appear on paper, were they to come from another.

I decided to do something different withthis one, and so it’s all instrumentals and minimal-voice pieces.

Also, I have no excuse for uploading 30 November’s cast again last week. I just fixed that.

 
download link

2009-12-14
Pizzicato 5 – Trailer Music
Japan – Voices Raised In Welcome, Hands Held In Prayer
Brian Eno – Here Come the Warm Jets
The Tape-beatles – Grave Implications
The Evolution Control Committee – Hurdy Gurdy Men
The Monochrome Set – The Etcetera Stroll
Style Council – Our Favourite Shop
Jean-Jacques Perrey – Soul City
Pierre Henry – Teen Tonic
Booker T & the MG’s – Mo’ Onions
Giddle & Boyd – Going Steady With Peggy Moffit
Les Cappiccino – Move Move Move
QYPTHONE – Tension Attention, Please / Modernica In the House
Pizzicato 5 – Readymade FM

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…at least that’s how it works out in my experiences. Yes, Communists and Socialists get laid more; I’m still not 100% on how that works out, but it’s totally true.

So I’ve got a new WordPress theme for the site and I’ve decided that the cast is going to be more ‘My Week in Music” — at least until I get bored with that concept. And hey, better start that now then two weeks ago, when it would have been a lot of Leonard Cohen and Rufus Wainwright. Unfortunately, only part of the cast really fits my last week in any specific way, and that is in two ways:

1) after an entire adolesence and young adulthood spent hating Morrissey, I’m starting to like Morrissey. Thankfully, I don’t see myself turning into one of those insane pod-persons who seem dead certain that Morrissey Can Do No Wrong, musically or otherwise, but the man’s not a terrible songwriter. Of course, as a singer myself, i have to admit that I like Morrissey better as a songwriter than as a singer.

2) I have new Docs. Made in England, Oxblood red, and sized UK6 (U$ Men’s 7) — technically I’m a UK5 wide, but try finding those. Anywhere. Little Boy’s section or otherwise.

 
download link

2009-11-23
Cat Stevens – Matthew & Son
Velvet Underground – European Son
David Bowie – London Bye Ta-Ta
Dexys Midnight Runners – T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia)
Television – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For the Devil
Franz Ferdinand – Evil and a Heathen
Powder – Magical Jack
Neil’s Children – Getting Evil In the Playground
Morrissey – Suedehead
Segue
Madness – Nightboat To Cairo
The Coventry Automatics – Concrete Jungle
Symarip – These Boots Are Made For Walking (Stompin’)
Alexei Sayle & Radical Posture – Doctor Marten’s Boots

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OK, a newer, better audio player is up. Still haven’t edited all past posts, but there aren’t very many, on the good side. On the bad side, I have to go to bed. Ciao.

To both people who remember last year’s podcast experiment on my regular blog, well, long story short, I’ve revised it and here’s the newest incarnation!

Unless otherwise stated in advance, this will be update every Monday at about Noon EST(GMT-0500). Today is an exception, I’ll update that in a jiffy. Another upcoming exception will be Monday, June 9th, as I will be in Chicago — that week’s update will be on Wednesday, June 11th, some time before 2pm.

Unless otherwise noted, all podcasts are original set-lists, though if I DJ’d during the past week, I’m probably going to be lazy and just upload that one.