punk rock blues

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

FARM REPORT: SUICIDE, SPIRITS AND ALL THAT FREE JAZZ

I found a true, for me, understanding of spirituality via the Sex Pistols. At the time (late '80s) I was about at the middle of my struggle to get sober and was using my opposition to the whole god/higher power trip as an excuse to keep drinking. I eventually 'got it' - the not drinking part that is. I mean I'm still lost on the nature of god - and happily so - but I got a real handle on the nature of, and the need for, spirituality thanks to the Sex Pistols.

As a self professed Atheist (which, when you give it a name and fundamental premise, is much the same as being a believer and as such, a little silly upon closer inspection) I balked continually at god, still do kinda, but more telling and detrimental to my health in this pose was my denial of anythinhg I couldn't touch. Or drink. Or break. I was also back then always recording songs on my 4 track. I had written one and was telling a friend it had been done in the SPIRIT of the Sex Pistols. Not the sound or stance, but the spirit. That which listening to the Pistolss made me FEEL.

OK you got me. Spirituality exists and sometimes it rocks. The spirit of the Sex Pistols (to me) was that of a slate being cleaned, a frontier claimed upon the wasted lands of yesterday. The Death of Rock and Roll with the Pistols sounding both the rattle of that death and the birth cry of something new.

Immedietly followed by scores upon scores of Pistol clones, all lightning bugs to the Pistols actua;l lightning. John Lydon shed the Rotten sobriquet and took up the challenge of producing a truly new music with Public Image Ltd, only to have the punters miss the point again. Folks forget that Lydon fronted not just one, but two of the most important bands in 'rock history' and the fact that the PiL gets lost in the shuffle is a damn shame. So, too a shame is the criminally overlooked Suicide, without whom etc. etc.

As confrontational a 'rock band' as anything since Iggy was a Stooge, Suicide was the braincchild of Alan Vega and Marty Rev (vocals and keyboards respectivley) who's 2 man assault cleared roomed and blew down doors for bands as varied as Sonic Youth, Glen Branca and the whole 'No Wave' movement.

more on this later, as I gotta get back to work. ciao!