5 Bands/Artists I Don’t Need or Want to Hear Anymore

 

The First Essential Scary Truth

My pal Abraham Benrubi recently posted a list of the 10 Bands/Artists he really doesn’t need or want to hear again.  Said post was inspired after being stuck in Los Angeles traffic and being forced to listen to commercial radio for the entirety of his captivity.  Abraham’s rant inspired me to delve deep into the recesses of my occasionally black soul and vomit forth the following list of 5 Bands/Artists I’d most like to see consigned to the dustbin of history.  (Yes only five as my bile only runs so deep.)

Enjoy!

* Led Zeppelin – Thievery has always been a part of the music industry, see Freed, Alan and the Payola Scandal of the 1950’s or Dylan, Bob and the Folk Tradition for a couple of quick primers on the subject.  Even Chuck Berry admitted on camera he ‘took’ his signature riff from T-Bone Walker.  These charlatans from our former Colonial masters outwardly and joyously stole from artists as diverse as Memphis Minnie and Richard Thompson, dumbed it all down for the arena rock crowd and proclaimed themselves geniuses.  There is a special place in Hell where a red-hot poker is currently being prepared and will be shoved up their collective asses for all eternity.  “This,” said demon will tell them, “is specifically for your fourth album.”

* The Doors – The leather pants and bad poetry thing plays well between 7^th and 11^th grade and then you realize Jim Morrison is just a bad imitation of Lou Reed’s solo career which launched DOA in 1972.  About the hippest thing the guy ever did was get thrown off the Ed Sullivan show for not changing the lyrics to “Light My Fire” which maybe the most sophomoric single in the Rock and Roll era.  And he’s a sex symbol?  Why?  Because he fucked Nico?  Come on, she was a bigger groupie than Jann Werner and Pamela Des Barres combined.  The best thing the guy did was drink himself to death at 27 so we weren’t forced to hear any more of his adolescent Oedipal fantasies set to bad cocktail jazz.  On the other hand, his ‘premature’ death did give us a bad (aren’t they all?) Oliver Stone movie so maybe that was a bad idea as well.

* Elvis Costello – any man that writes various songs decrying racism and then has the unmitigated gall to call Ray Charles a “blind ignorant nigger” and James Brown a “jive ass nigger” in a very public incident in a Columbus, Ohio bar deserves to be eviscerated.  Not only was he dismissing one of the great artists of the last century due to race and handicap but also one of the men who popularized the musical form in which the Brit prick works.  Karma hit moments later when Bonnie Bramlett, who was chatting with Costello at the time, dropped him with one punch, a fitting result for a racist and anti-Semite who hides behind the Rock Against Racism banner.  Every time I hear one of the guy’s tunes, all I can think about is a Cross Burning.  Ironic from the man who popularized ‘(What’s so funny about) Peace, Love and Understanding.’

* Bruce Springsteen – ‘4th of July’ by Dave Alvin has more of sweep than ‘Born to Run’ and Iron Maiden has committed more gripping epics to MP3.  He’s a bad version of Dylan whose send up of Springsteen (‘Tweeter and the Monkeyman’) is far more listenable than anything this hack has done in over 40 years.  Does he occasionally write great songs?  Sure.  So do Sam the Sham, Sky Saxon and Lady Gaga.  Oh yeah and Bruce, your idol Pete Seeger walked the walk.  Just sayin’.

* Green Day – I remember seeing them on Letterman in 1994 when ‘Dookie’ arrived.  My first thought was Hukser Du and the Replacements should sue.  Now I believe the band should have been waterboarded in ‘93 until they admitted the perfectly obvious: hardcore and punk rock HAPPENED.

My freelance Gall Bladder has been emptied in, I may add, an unmitigated fashion.  It’s lovely to be back blogging for you once more.  See you in a few days kids.

(Hat Tip: Abraham Benrubi)