Danger Danger – Screw It! (1991)

This album is one I acquired for 10p from Prism Leisure in Great Yarmouth. From the cover I knew exactly what to expect. On the front there is a painting of a gorilla in a denim waistcoat, swinging from a branch, holding a bikini clad, blonde, human woman, who is eating a banana. On the back is a photo of a selection of the cheesiest Cock-Rock/Hair-Metal men you could ever wish to behold. 

And there is a startling lack of irony here. And I think that is what I love so much about this. In the same way that BrassEye is hilarious but when you see the presentation of actual news programs be worse, without trying, it is even funnier, Danger Danger are probably funnier than Spinal Tap. These guys sing songs like Slipped Her The Big One and Yeah, You Want It with a straight face. And then they segue into songs about love such as I Still Think About You. These men are not ashamed of being massive buffoons. Their self parody is possibly most well presented by the (very early) highlight of the album: Ginger Snaps/ Monkey Business. Starting with some basic drumming accompanied by female orgasm noises and the noises of an ape(!), which continues for a minute (making up the Ginger Snaps element of the song) and then into “AIN'T NO BUSINESS LIKE MONKEY BUSINESS!” The lyrics to Monkey Business are amazing. My highlight of the house party I recently attended was singing aloud MB with the aforementioned David Funnell. Funnell, being possibly the only person I know who has learned the lyrics AND how to play the song on guitar.

Although there are probably many cheesier and many better examples of this genre of music, I don't feel the need to expand my knowledge in this area. I rather pathetically listen to Monkey Business more than any other song I own, and it is therefore the best 10p I ever did spend.

As an irrelevant aside, I saw this on Facebook and it made me laugh:

Fiery Furnaces – Rehearsing My Choir (2005)

I'm not a big Fiery Furnaces fan. I've tried giving their music a listen but it really doesn't grab me. I enjoyed seeing them live though. I just mustn't dig their songs, and the production seems a little bit too nice for my liking. However, I love this album. This album is brilliant.

The album features the usual members of the band and Olga Sarantos, the band members grandmother. She provides spoken word pieces. I really enjoy the grandmother/ granddaughter vocal combo, the old dear spinning yarns. If I understand this correctly, sometimes it is a grandma interacting with her granddaughter and sometimes the granddaughter is playing the role of a young Olga. Or something. It has that so uncool that it is cool quality.

The music itself is fairly complex, I reckon (I'm fairly musically ignorant from a technical point of view). It's pretty all over the place. Songs change direction completely halfway through. However, it's a bit like one long song...or rather the album as a whole is like an opera or something. The Candymaker's Knife In My Handbag sounds like it should be in a Mighty Boosh-like comedy. The whole thing is dreamlike.

Apparently the lyrics are followable, and the writer has explained what decade each song is from. I've never actually tried to follow it. The album itself brings back the memory of eating chicken in the kitchen of the first house I shared with David Funnell. We listened to the album whilst we were cleaning the kitchen before we moved out of the house. Well...we listened to this album whilst we ate food and talked. We were having a break, alright!

I really like this album. But this is making me sound like one of those people who is deliberately selecting the weirdest stuff he can think of. Well, we'll get to Oasis later.

Jandek - Blue Corpse (1982)

I wouldn't say that I 'like' Jandek in the traditional sense of the word. His music can be difficult to listen to. It is depressing and mostly tuneless. It is supposedly played in Jandek's own special “black” key, which pretty much amounts to being completely out of tune. The music is essentially blues, I suppose, but really scary blues. This is the sort of music you expect to be made by a psychopath. Perhaps it is. I just can't help but like Jandek. His solitude appeals greatly to me. I think Jandek's appeal for most (well, let's be fair, there is no appeal 'for most' here) is the mystery that surrounds him. For me Jandek is a man who lives in a sparsely decorated house. He sleeps on a grey mattress. All spare cash is spent on creating these albums. He has little contact with others. He's pretty fed up with the world. Maybe he hates the world. Yet, he feels this music with droning vocals, harsh clanging, detuned guitar and not-exactly-chipper lyrics might have appeal and promotes it. The guy has created roughly 70 albums, and promoted them in the way a recluse might. I wonder if he has moved on and created a myspace page...

I find the best way to listen to Jandek is at roughly 2 am, whilst reading about Jandek and/or serial killers. It gives me a feeling of huge paranoia. I half expect to Jandek approach like Nosferatu, from behind. It is spooky. I keep looking at the window, half expecting to see a face. When I go to get a glass of water my own reflection in the window will startle me. Yet I like Jandek. It's like a musical Stockholm Syndrome.

I went through a phase of listening to Jandek through headphones as I slept. Weird. I'd wake at 3am to the clanging sound of Jandek thumping away at his guitar and drearily moaning about something.

I've selected this album because it is the one with Nancy Sings on. Nancy Sings has a female vocalist (we'll assume her name is Nancy). It helps break up the intense Jandekness of it all. I really like that song. I imagine her as a hippie alcoholic who has somehow managed to befriend Jandek and 'gets' him.

I could probably have chosen one of many of his albums – without being a huge Jandek obsessive, many of the tracks from any one “era of Jandek” sound similar. Not in a Wesley Willis, “this song is exactly the same” sort of way, but in the way one detuned guitar randomly plucked at by someone who 'cannot play' sounds much like any other detuned guitar randomly plucked at by someone who 'cannot play.'