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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There is a very good reason that I haven’t uploading anything in a few weeks, and why this week’s cast may be best described as… well, “not Mod”. A very good reason, but not one I’m going to extrapolate on here because, frankly, if you don’t know, you don’t need to know. But it makes me feel better, and only four or five people seem to listen to this with any sort of regularity, it seems — and “five” is me being an egotist.

Think about it though: what could be more Modern than electronic music?

2010-01-25
The Buggles – Living In the Plastic Age
Fad Gadget – Speak To Me
Tuxedomoon – Desire
Shriekback – Beatles’ Zebra Crossing
Yoko Ono – Wlking On Thin Ice
Silicon Teens – Sun Flight
Stereo Total – Dans le Parc
Sylvester – Band of Gold
Colourbox – You Keep Me Hangin’ On
DEVO – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Berlin – The Metro
Vicious Pink – My Private Tokyo
Japan – Life In Tokyo

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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).

 
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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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I actually compiled this cast a couple of days ago so that I wouldn’t have to worry about selecting some Yultide Cheer at the last moment.

 
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2009-12-21
The Soulful Strings – The Little Drummer Boy
The Pipettes – White Christmas
James Brown – Merry Christmas, I Love You
Eartha Kitt – I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ For Christmas
The Del Vetts – I Want A Boy For Christmas
The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping
Eleanor Rigby – Kiss Me Quickly (It’s Christmas)
Danielle Dax – Blue Christmas
Dexys Midnight Runners – Merry Christmas Everybody
Marc Bolan – Christmas Bop
Shonen Knife – Space Christmas
The Jacobites – Teenage Christmas
The Kinks – Father Christmas
The Dead Milkmen – All I Want For Christmas Is a Job
Marc Almond – Christmas In Vegas
Klaus Nomi – Silent Night
Tiny Tim – The Christmas Song
Mae West – My New Year’s Resolution

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Well, monkeys (all three of you listening to this), I’ve got a new computer finally settled in, and so the Modcast is back, and to commerate this fact — and the fact that I’m now updating this on Mondays — I’ve made today’s cast a theme!  Whoo!

Yes, I’ve thrown mood and beatmatching out the window (and I say this as if I ever gave a shit before), to play some of my favourite spooky Mod (and Mod Friendly) songs and Goth covers of Mod (and Mod-friendly) songs, and a few punk covers thrown in, (cos I don’t even give a shit about the theme here) and whatever the hell Shakespeare’s Sister and Strawberry Switchblade are (cos I bloody well felt like it), cos damnit, I have all this music, and you’re just as bored as I am, so you’re going to give it a listen now, aren’t you?  Aren’t you?

Shakespeare’s Sister – “Black Sky”
Velvet Underground – “Beginning to See the Light”
Nico – “Roses In the Snow”
The Fall – “Mod Mock Goth”
Slade – “Raven”
Strawberry Switchblade – “Ecstasy (Apple of My Eye)”
The Zombies – “Time Of the Season”
Christine Pilzer – “Dracula”
The Vampires – “My Girl”
Sisters of Mercy – “1969″
Gina X Performance – “Harley Davidson”
Siouxie & the Banshees – “This Wheel’s On Fire”
Bauhaus – “Telegram Sam”
Patti Smith – “My Generation”
Jayne County – “Come On Down to My Boat Baby”
Nashville Pussy – “First I Look At the Purse”
Lydia Lunch & Rowland S Howard – “Some Velvet Morning”
The Who – “Boris the Spider”

And before the off-chance that anybody comments, YES, I realise that I don’t have “Paint It Black” on there, because I only have it on vinyl, I am not wheeling my record player into my studio, slsk is not cooperating, and I’m impatient — so there you go.

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