Total Control - Typical System

I'd already decided to review this LP before I'd heard it. I liked their previous record Henge Beat from 2011. I guess they are a side project band but I can't tell these days what the main bands are for these people and what the side projects are. So I guess you have to take them all on their own merits. Hey I'm a fan of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Ooga Boogas and UV Race some of whose members are in Total Control. I wasn't however expecting to be so disappointed by this record. Sure Total Control show they have fabulous taste in punk/post-punk/synth music but is that enough at this stage of the game/epoch.

It all kicks off with Glass a Suicide/Numan/Foxx pastiche. Then Expensive Dog which is just like a Wire song. Flesh War is better like a new romantic Eddy Current tune. A chorus you're not expecting turns up and you're in pop heaven for a moment and the previous two tracks are forgotten. The guitars and synth intermingle perfectly. In fact you can't help thinking why didn't they go over the top with the production on this one to give it a chance at being a top 10 hit in the pop charts! Systematic Fuck is next, in my notes it says systematically fucking boring, huh? Liberal Party starts off promising with synths, drum machines, maybe a sax and an insidious guitar line. Then you're thinking well this could have been made in 1981 by The Makers Of The Dead Travel Fast. Nothing modern, now or futuristic is happening here or anywhere else on the record. There is no attempt to use the attitude/manifesto's that caused their influences to create such visionary work. Total Control are content to reproduce the sounds of trailblazers but not attempt anything revolutionary/innovative themselves, not even really attempt to extend on their heroes ideas. Are they/we just resigned to repeating the past future over and over. Nietzsche has been mentioned as an influence on this record but that feels like a cop out and a little too convenient doncha think?.

Two Less Jacks is a bit like er.....Gang Of Four. Black Spring is a bit more organic. It's a trippy psych gem (If you're in need of another one of those that's up to you I guess). I'm trying not to say Black Cab or Spaceman 3 but I just did. The Ferryman follows and it's synth noodling for 2 minutes & 42 seconds that's not unpleasant. Hunter is weird electronic goodness that I wish Typical System had more of. The keyboards & guitar seem barely controlled. The vocals have a desperation and the sweet girl backing vocals add an unexpected juxtaposition. Safety Net is more Numan/Foxx/Human League in indieland schtick with Mikey Young's unmistakable guitar which gives the tune an odd vibe. But then I just can't help wishing it would turn into an Eddy Current Suppression Ring song with Brendan takin over the microphone with his fingerless gloves and the rest of the Eddy Current boys kickin out the jams in their unique style. Instead Safety Net just plods into inconsequence to end the record. Probably not really what the world needs now. Flesh War & Hunter are the standout tunes and I really wanted to love the rest of the record as much as those tracks but....

Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times & Short Life of Darby Crash & The Germs

I don't really know what prompted me to finally pull this off the shelf and start reading it. Perhaps I was in need of a dose of punk after reading about dinosaurs Led Zeppelin. I must confess I'm not really into rock Biographies. I think the only two I got through ever were the Mike Barnes Beefheart book and Heroes & Villains: The True Story Of The Beach Boys by Steven Gaines like 17 years ago. The Gaines book particularly shitted me because I don't even think he liked their music. I got halfway through Patti Smith's book Just Kids and hey that was beautifully written..... I guess I'm more into music analysis, cultural/social impact and just the magic of music without all the blah blah. All my friends tell me to read you know the bio on Neil Young, Motley Crue, Keef, James Freud, various Guns & Roses folk etc. etc. I'm more into documentaries like the Classic Albums series one on The Mac's Rumours, 30 Century Man on Scott Walker, Made In Sheffield: The Birth of Electronic Pop,  End of The Century on The Ramones, It's A Long Way To The Top, the 6 part ABC series on the history of Australian Rock and The Story Of Anvil. I even avoid most of those. I never watched the one on The Pixies or The Minutemen. Mainly I like it when the focus is on the music not the gossip or the hangers on/groupies/business people. I like the mystery. I don't wanna know if Black Francis is a cunt or not.

Then there are the movies where they supposedly dramatise real life events of scenes and groups. I loathed 24 Hour Party People despite being a a massive Factory Records head with Peter Hook being one of my all time cult heroes. Even the great Steve Coogan couldn't save that shite. I've steered totally clear of Control, the movie based on Joy Division. I don't want these fake images in my head ruining what my imagination has come up with. After watching the Joan Jett movie I now picture Joan as the girl from Twilight. Ray Manzarek became Coop in a wig once I'd watched Oliver Stone's The Doors. IE. Kyle Maclachlan who was currently playing Agent Cooper in the Twin Peaks tv series put on an absurd wig and came across as nothing like the Manzarek we encounter more often than you might think.

Anyway I'd thought I'd get about 30 pages into Lexicon Devil and then give up. About 15 years ago someone made me a copy of The Germs GI record and I was massively surprised that they weren't total shite. I was never big on X and about 94% of the LA hardcore that followed in The Germs Wake. The only other thing from that era in LA that I liked was The Screamers who had this mental bootleg around that same time (as when I got GI) called In A Better World. As far as US proto-punk/punk/post-punk was concerned Detroit, San Fransisco, New York and Ohio were where it was at.

The Screamers

I pretty much knew nothing about this LA scene except for some of the main bands music - The aforementioned X and The Screamers as well as The Weirdos, The Urinals & The Go Gos. From the get go this book had me hooked. It was written oral history stylee. The stories of Darby's fucked up LA alternative schooling were totally bizarre. This was the 70s, this was LA, this was very experimental schooling and education. These school experiences along with Darby's studies of Scientology and brainwashing informed the rest of his short life. Who knew he was a budding cult leader in the making? So there were lots of drugs, booze, squalor, violence and oh yeah punk rock! Mainly though most of the people/hangers on/groupies in this book were total fucking arseholes. Lexicon Devil is an expose on repression, perversion, violence, manipulation, murder, mental Illness, depravity, suicide and wasted youth.

There isn't much talk about the importance (for want of a better term) or the cultural affect of some of the seminal records being released by bands included in this scene and book. As you can probably guess by it's title Darby's life begins to escalate into a drug and alcohol fuelled mess and finally tragedy. Legendary rock writer Richard Meltzer was quoted thus "Lexicon Devil is pure and Simple, the finest volume on punk to see the light of print."

Belinda Carlisle, Genesis P Orridge, Lee Ving, Kid Congo Powers, Jack Nitzsche, Kim Fowley, Gary Panter, Joan Jett, Tomato Du Plenty, Matt Groening, Jello Biafra, Phranc, The Quick, Mike Watt, Greg Shaw and many others make cameos in the book. Mainly though it's The Germs, Weirdos, Go Gos and X members along with the little gangs and cliques that congregated around wannabe cult leader Darby Crash that make up the story.

The Germs - Forming

What's missing though is the fact that The Germs Forming 7" is one of the greatest debut singles by any band ever (in all its lo-fi glory) and their GI LP is a fine record that still stands up to this day. Maybe it's even still influential today? Hello UV Race. You could do worse than having The Germs as an Influence.

Lexicon Devil

Darby Crash Punk Rock Poet. Hey!, Pat Smear, Don Bolles & Lorna Doom were pretty darn good too.

**Further listening Black Hole: California Punk 1977-80 released in 2010 on Domino.
**This features all the previously mentioned groups plus The Dils, Black Randy & The Metro Squad and The Flesh Eaters. There's even some bands from San Fran like Crime, The Dead Kennedys and The Sleepers.

Bambino Melbourne Music Mafia

I was gonna go on an all Aussie trip with the bassists and there did seem to be a particular Australian style but the youtube's  annoying me. Maybe another time. Sorry Grant McLennen, Chris Walsh, Ian Rilen, Mark Lock, Mark Ferrie & Brian Hooper.  Geez how's that for a list. They will all eventually be members entered into my Aussie bassplayer phonebox of fame

A few years ago now I don't remember the exact year (2008?) but it seemed like Melbourne rock was really goin' great guns with top records by Beaches, Eddy Current, Ooga Boogas, Witch Hats, The Drones, Fabulous Diamonds all in the same year. Not forgetting the old garde Mr Cave & Mr Graney as well, who delivered the goods too. It seemed like it was gonna go through the roof in the following years but it didn't. Anyway no need to dwell on such ideas. Looking forward to new records from Ooga Boogas and Beaches if they still exist
.

Anyway it seems like there is a bambino Melbourne music mafia now. Twerps, Toatal Conrol, Eddy Current, Dick Diver, UV Race etc. You know they're all playing on one anothers records or producing them. Like the old Melbourne Music Mafia. The bambini have their own scene/quasi sylee/monopoly of cool/uncool now. Anyway I'm also even enjoying a Lost Animal track at the moment. The UV Race have become my favourite post Eddy Current Suppression Ring Band and I mean that as a compliment. Maybe the Melbourne scene will eventually go bananas like the old days, I hope so there seems to be some great talent about. The Bambini Rock (well some of em do).

The UV Race of the Bambino Melbourne music mafia with country connections.