Glorify The Turd

About

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all Music Blogs, past and present, for allowing me to download more free shit than I would ever have even considered spending my cold hard cash on.  I have discovered all kinds of interesting stuff as a result of you people and you have provided me with countless hours of entertainment.  Thus, I should state that the purpose of this Blog is to “put back”, after taking, oh, so very, very much! This is going to be a short-lived Blog, unless I manage to have a change of heart along the way (don’t hold your breath).  I have already ripped every record I plan on putting up, scanned every piece of literature I plan on sharing, and wrote most of the posts.  I did this because it is the only way I can get things done, knowing full well that if I were to wait until I were “in the mood” to do it piecemeal, it would never happen.  So, if you’re looking for a Blog that does regular postings, you can add this one to your list, as this whole thing is ready to roll!

Most of the records and literature presented here were collected from 1983 to present.  It is not my intention to impress anyone with all my nifty records, since there are guys out there who would easily put me to shame. In fact, I deliberately left out a number of rarities of the “Killed By Death” nature because, frankly, I don’t find that shit all that interesting anymore and haven’t in a long time.  I always had a thing for novelty records and it used to annoy me that people who came to check out my collection wouldn’t even bother to look at all the nifty stuff I snagged from the thrift stores and flea markets.  Thus, I am spiking many of these posts with some relevant “junk” records that I feel to be of value to the uninitiated. Trust me, I am only putting up the tip of the iceberg! I love weird shit and I love “crap”–the dumber the better! Crap never lets you down, whereas there have been precious few critically acclaimed “artists” (and I choke on that term as it refers to Punk Rock musicians) that really struck me as living up to all the hype.  I am posting some literature, as well, on the off chance that anyone out there still knows how to read and, again, I wouldn’t bother putting them up if I didn’t feel them to be of worth. It is my hope that the files I put up get spread all over the place as my way of putting back what I have taken.

I remember the day I acquired the ability to transfer records to my computer and reflecting that it was only a matter of time until people started dumping their stuff on the web in massive quantities.  Now that the day is here, I couldn’t be happier.  For one thing, cheap bastards like me get to scarf up free entertainment.  For another, and more importantly, it enables folks to hear records they would have had to pay a small fortune for just to listen to or spend years searching for in used record stores and flea markets.  If I had to sight one complaint about having all this great music at your fingertips, it’s that it has produced people who fail to appreciate the level of commitment involved in being aware of underground and obscure music.  I am by no means suggesting that the “old-fashioned” method of trading tapes and collecting zines is superior to what we have now, but there was EFFORT and monetary risk involved in acquiring music and information in that fashion, and I seriously doubt most kids now go through half the trouble I had to back in the day.  Not that I’m complaining, and the novelty records were especially interesting to collect because it often involved going into many truly terrible neighborhoods and dealing with total weirdoes—and I loved every second of it and still do!! It certainly isn’t the fault of the younger generation that they were born when they were, but I believe that this lack of commitment does, in fact, affect the attitude of the “fan” quite a bit.   Any kid can be an “expert” on the glory days of Punk and Hardcore just by searching the web now, whereas it used to all be spread by word of mouth and the printed page.  I make no secret of the fact that, if I were a kid again in 2009, I wouldn’t even waste my time on most of this stuff—especially Punk Rock.  I would see those people the same way I saw the Hippies and, in these turbulent times, the notion of pissing away my time on some cliquey scene that hasn’t seen any serious action in over 20 years would make no sense.  That’s not to say there isn’t any good music out there right now—there just isn’t enough to hold my interest anymore.  But have hope, kiddies, there is tons of interesting stuff to download on the web and you could be exploring new frontiers right here and now—use your imagination and take a good look around—there is no reason to limit yourself to just one style of music.  There’s some crazy shit out there to be discovered.

If you’ve managed to read this far, let me toss one more thing out at you:  there is a difference between “obscurity” and the “underground”.  This really shouldn’t require any explanation, but I believe there are still people laboring under that notion that Punk, Hardcore (and God knows those bands suck the WORST these days!), Indie, Emo, etc. are actually “underground” bands.  I beg to differ.  Do your shows have fliers at the record store or the venue?  Can the places you play advertise in the weekly Entertainer? Do you advertise your shows on the web where anyone can see it?  Do you worry about cops or Feds?  Well, I guess you aren’t as “underground” as all that, now are you?  Could you imagine Frank Discussion doing his stunt where he fired blanks from an assault rifle at an unsuspecting audience in this year of 2009? Even back in those days, it took some serious balls to pull off a stunt like that and, while one would most assuredly be getting some jail or possibly prison time for pulling such shit now, it doesn’t leave anyone off the hook in my book.  If you have a desire to offend, you find a way.  If you want to piss off the average jerk, you find a way.  If you want to scare the shit out of people, you figure out how to do it without landing your ass in jail. Sound simple?  It’s because it is (in theory, at least!), and the fact that no one is doing it in an era that is literally ripe with opportunity is a source of annoyance to me and should be a source of embarrassment to those with a real axe to grind against society at large. Or is everybody content now? If you do the math, you’ll quickly find that society is much more restrictive now than it was in the late 1970’s, and to say that “youth culture” has all but been boiled down into pill form for consumption by the brainwashed products of our public schools would be putting it mildly. And no one is outraged by this?  Do you think tattoos and dick rings are “counter-culture”?  I’m not even trying to be sarcastic here—I honestly believe there are a lot of people walking around that are just that fucking stupid!  It is 1976 all over again, only things are much, much worse, and I’m looking at bozos who all they can think to do is get some faggot retro 1970’s haircut with sideburns and dress like 1977-era Steve Diggle!!  They’re all shit.! Seriously.  And so are the rest of you retro fucks!  Rock and Roll, my fuckin’ ass!!  You bore me.  Stop boring Mr. Poopy!!!!