'Slipknot'

I listened to these guys play music. They wear masks.

'A Northern Soul'

A story of a band that breaks up all the time.

Basically, Richard Ashcroft is kind of a hard guy to get along with for one reason or another. I’m sure it’s not all his fault, but when you consider its him getting punched in the face by his guitar player and him having to reconcile with the drummer, bassist and same guitar player during a second break-up, you can see that there’s a central figure in all of this.

The band first broke up after the success of their break-out album A Northern Soul. Chiding their psychedelic first album, the band loosed the chains on Ashcroft’s lilting vocals and wrote basic rock songs.

Right before the release of their third single, Ashcroft broke the band up.

Although noting no regret, he got the band back together with a new guitar player about a year later. Next thing they know they are mega worldwide superstars thanks to the hit single “Bitter Sweet Symphony.”

Then they broke up again.

Six years later they reunited. Then they broke up again. This time for good, or so everyone thinks. 

'Yank Crime' & 'Scream, Dracula, Scream!'

This might be a first (and only) for the 1,001 Records You Should Listen To Before You Die.

Plenty of artists are involved in multiple records on the list. For example, The Beatles or Elvis Costello. But very few are involved with two different albums from two different bands within a year of each other.

This is the case with John Reis and his two bands, Drive Like Jehu and Rocket from the Crypt.

Reis was in the band Pitchfork (had the website Pitchfork been around in the late 1980s, I’m sure they would’ve given the band a poor review) with Rick Froberg. Pitchfork died and Reis’ attentions went two different directions. He formed the post-punk/hardcore outfit Drive Like Jehu with Froberg and Rocket from the Crypt, a punk band, basically.

“Different” doesn’t do the two bands justice. Rocket is a collection of two-minute, three-chord punk songs. Drive Like Jehu are orchestrated eight-minute multi-sectioned compositions with heavy guitars interconnecting into crescendo and release.

The two bands released eponymous debuts in 1991. Drive Like Jehu released its only other record, Yank Crime, in 1994 (which seems like a lifetime after Nevermind) and Rocket released Scream, Dracula, Scream! a year later. Drive Like Jehu promptly broke up even though they were the superior band, but there’s no accounting for taste, I guess.  

Ever friends, Reis and Froberg formed another band, Hot Snakes, together several years later. 

'A Little Deeper'

A simply tremendous artist from a rather unknown female rapper from England. Unlike some, her accent is negligible and sounds pretty American even among the production value.

A Little Deeper came out in 2002 and Ms. Dynamite has done one other album, released in 2005. In 2006, as part of a celebrity race car driving TV show, she was in a serious accident. Years before, her career was interrupted when she punched a cop.

After the accident she left the public eye and despite the announcement of a new album in 2009, it was never released. It takes a miracle for someone to have such an impact on popular culture even in a limited way so it should be no surprise when others fade away.

'Salt Of The Earth'

As I get older, I find it funny how humans are OK with stripping others of their dignity. I find it funny how principles generally are leaned upon when it’s convenient.

In our grandparents’ lifetime – not 50-75 years ago – Americans were not only irresistibly hateful, but uncompromisingly scared shitless of treating people above anything of that of a bug.

Salt of the Earth is groundbreaking. “Released” in 1954, it captures the struggle of not only union miners in New Mexico, but Mexican workers, and not only Mexican union minors, but the females, the women behind the workers. It’s progressive in so many ways because it was all taboo, it was all anti-American that it wasn’t appropriately released only being shown in 12 theaters in the United States for 10 years after its production. By the way, the production was done by all blacklisted film makers and starred only four trained actors, none of which played major roles.

The same folks that decry the influence of unions are the same that hold the Constitution in such high regard particularly when it comes to the right to bear arms. However, freedoms of speech and assembly are nominal allowances. The pursuit of happiness and equality are reserved for Fourth of July parades and grandstanding.

The deplorable way minorities (ethnic or racial) were treated is hard to swallow. The treatment of women is unconscionable. But the basic right for humans to assembly and demand a better work environment or more pay is as capitalistic as you can possibly get. The fact that unionization and withholding a workforce to affect production (and thus profits) is a means to that end is irrelevant.

The “not in my backyard” mentality kills us as a nation.