June Playlist

I'm all over the damn place right now.

This month has been….a lot. Work is nuts, I spent 10 days in Calgary for Jenni’s family reunion, and I’m dealing with some inner turmoil about my health (I’ll get into it another time) so my mind is….scattered.

So let’s start off this month’s playlist with a song that was both elevated and ruined by its pivotal inclusion in the movie Fight Club, “Where Is My Mind?” by the Pixies.

Of course, it was the perfect song for that moment in the film. Of course it was. It’s just that now we all got that kneejerk gatekeeper reflex when every douchebag who loved that movie for the very wrong reasons decided it was the anthem for how “different and cool” they were, and then we had to immediately deal with feeling like shit about being exactly the kind of gatekeeping assholes we hate. It was an ugly moment for old punks with even the merest whiff of self-awareness. Still a great fucking song.

From here we stumble into “Shorty” by the band Missile Command, who you’ve never heard of. I promise you’ve never heard of them. They dropped one self-released album in 1999 (which I owned on cassette, thank you very much) and then they broke up. This is a punk archeologists dream, this kind of band. Mercifully this album made it to Spotify somehow and now I can relive the brief moment when me and my buddy Paul Feldman were very much in love with this band. When this song popped into my head and I added it to my list, I messaged Paul a screenshot of my Spotify app and he nearly shit himself. He also hadn’t thought of this band in forever and it was a nice trip down memory lane for both of us.

Next up: “How Far I’ll Go” from the Moana soundtrack because I have four kids and I’ve seen this movie like 90 times and it’s a fucking good song about finding your place in the world and somehow, at the age of 47, I’m still not totally sure that I have. I’m always looking, still, at the horizon and wondering what’s next. I wonder if I’ll ever be content. Somehow I doubt it.

“Alex Chilton” makes me think of a lot of things. It makes me think of my friend Phoebe, and the time we saw Paul Westerberg live here in Cleveland and he broke all his guitars before he got halfway through his set. Watching him fumblefuck around on stage while his backing band shook their heads was equal parts entertaining and sad, and while we were both glad we got to see him live at least once in our lives we were also kinda hoping we’d catch him on a better night. Hearing him belt this song, an unmatched anthem about another iconic songwriter, was something else though.

I heard the song “Low Life” in a vintage shop in Calgary while I was there and it was catchy enough that I stopped flipping through clothing racks long enough to Google the lyrics and find the song and save it on Spotify. There’s a cheery snottiness to it that I really enjoy, and maybe it was the time and place or maybe I’m just a sucker for a catchy bass line, but this song is fucking great.

While many of you know me as a salty old punk it may surprise some of you to know that I have a goth streak a mile wide. I know, an old theatre kid likes melodramatic music? What a fucking surprise. But I went full bore for a while there. Exhibit A:

Not pictured: the black velvet pants that I was definitely wearing in this photo and the fishnet shirt (yes) that was under this white tee.

I still love me some Sisters of Mercy and Christian Death and Bauhaus and old Nine Inch Nails and when I wanted to go out dancing, I started my evening at home with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. Confessions of a Knife is, by my estimation, an absolutely perfect album from start to finish and while I’m well past my dancing years there’s zero fucking chance this song comes on without me immediately bobbing my head and getting stoked.

So from there it only makes sense to head right into Sisters of Mercy with their 8-minute dance floor anthem, “Temple of Love - 1992”. When SoM came on you knew you were gonna dance, and you also knew that you were gonna be dancing for a while. For such catchy, danceable songs they were fucking loooooong. Maybe it was all the cigarettes I was smoking at the time (Narrator: It was) but by the end of this song my ass was cooked for a while, not that it ever stopped me from immediately hitting the floor when I heard the intro.

I guess we can’t get off this train without a quick listen to “Supernaut” by 1000 Homo DJs, another spin-off group from the Ministry family of miscreants (which is worth a deep dive if you aren’t familiar…Revolting Cocks, Pigface, Pailhead, Lard….there’s so much good material there it’s kind of wild to consider it all came from the same small pool of people). This song is the lone “hit” from 1000 Homo DJs but it’s a pretty fantastic track and a great time capsule of this specific moment in industrial dance music.

From here I felt like I needed a palate cleanser so I went with the old dad evolution of all this and ended up at LCD Soundsystem. If you ever want to feel like you’re in the second act of a Noah Baumbach movie, fire up “All My Friends” for some danceable ennui that’s great for staring at a wall while you contemplate your decisions. Oldest kid heading off to college? Just scheduled that colonscopy? Starting a new cholesterol medication? LCD Soundsystem is there for you.

And as long as we’re feeling old, let’s round this playlist out with a track from the punkest motherfuckers ever to get booed while opening for Black Flag: the Minutemen. While the SoCal punk scene was scaring the living shit out of squares everywhere, the Minutemen rolled in from San Pedro and said “Hey, any of you fuckers like jazz or thoughtful reflections on American history?” and do you have any idea how fucking confident you have to be to bring that shit to a Black Flag show? Their landmark album, Double Nickels on the Dime, is still a pure joy from start to finish and if you consider the context of the album it’s even better.

Hope you enjoy this month’s playlist. I’ve got a lot in my head right now that needs to get out, so expect a more thoughtful post soon. Just have to find a little time for myself.