Tag Archives: black flag

Basketball, Tuneage

Ray Manzarek, Bill Walton, and Greg Ginn Walk Into a Studio…

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waltonUpon hearing of the passing of Ray Manzarek, my first thoughts were not of The Doors or Jim Morrison, but of the keyboardist’s role in one of the weirder albums ever released. It was called Men Are Made In The Paint, and it was a spoken word project by Bill Walton in which the former UCLA great and NBA analyst shared his thoughts on the game of basketball at length. At great length, in fact, because Men Are Made In The Paint is a double album, clocking in at almost 2 and a half hours of Bill Walton’s witness protection voice talking about hoops.

A Bill Walton spoken word album is not especially strange in and of itself, but what puts Men Are Made In The Paint over the top is who Walton made the album with, and who released it.

If you’re a former punk rock kid of a certain age, you no doubt remember the little catalogs that came in every SST release, printed on Bible-weight tissue paper and strategically folded so they could hold listings for every record that label put out yet still fit between the CD and booklet for Damaged or Double Nickels on the Dime. One of my former bandmates swore he would one day own every single item in that catalog, and so he made it a point to learn every last release printed thereon, memorizing the backlist of obscure bygone groups like Tom Troccoli’s Dog and Fatso Jetson.

While studying the catalog with talmudic dedication, he discovered a tiny section for something called ISSUES RECORDS. Its only listing was Men Are Made In The Paint. That a Bill Walton double album existed was crazy enough to him, but the revelation was made doubly (quadruply?) crazy by the fact that Greg Ginn was somehow responsible. My friend, who worshiped Ginn, would often point to this as a sign of his quixotic genius and proclaimed this thing must be worth listening to it because Ginn deemed it so.

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Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.21.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

Today I present the special spoken word edition. This is technically not music, but screw it. I made these rules, and I’ll bend them as I see fit. Plus, this list is comprised of spoken word pieces by musical artists. So I think it adheres to the spirit, if not the letter, of this project.

* Anything from Paul Stanley’s collection of stage banter, People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest This hit the intertubes a year or two ago, but I only recently got a chance to hear it. I shouldn’t say it’s Paul Stanley’s per se, but a collection made by a fan (or insane completist, or dedicated ironist) that compiles the KISS frontman’s best stage banter. It’s every bit as stupid as you might imagine. My favorite: this clip, in which Paul delivers outlines his battle plan for the rock n’ roll war on terror.

* Any hip hop album “comedy” track
Prince Paul has brought us much joy, but he’s also responsible for the proliferation of Hip Hop Comedy Filler Tracks in the 90s. He was the first to do it, and millions of MCs followed his lead by recording their own mini-auditions for SNL This trend allowed even the thinnest of CDs to stretch out to a respectable 37 minutes.

For ten years or so, even the best albums were interrupted by aggressively filthy bits, or outtakes of guys screwing around in the studio while extremely high. Like four minutes of garbage when you’d much rather have that precious disc space filled up by something like music. So I like the idea of a batter picking a track off of, say, The Chronic, but instead of hearing “Dre Day”, he gets one of its intensely dated, unfunny skits.

* Venom stage banter
Venom was an 80s metal band from England that dabbled in Satanic imagery. In 1986, someone thought it would be a good idea to put them and Black Flag on the same bill. Fun! Aside from providing much chuckle fodder for Henry Rollins (as detailed in Get in the Van), this tour also resulted in one of the most hilarious collections of stage banter ever.

You can get the full story (and an MP3) in WFMU’s blog here, but the short version is this: a Flag roadie (Joe Cole, probably) recorded a Venom show in New Jersey, edited out all of the music, and compiled lead singer Cronos’ cringe-inducing stage banter. Comedy gold–nay, comedy platinum!

This tape became so legendary in music nerd circles that it was even released as a single by Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label. I’d love to see a batter stroll to the plate while Cronos screams YOU WANNA HEAR SOMETHING THAT’S GONNA KICK YOUR BALLS OFF?!

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.12.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

* “Footography”, Foot Patrol
My pal Mikey J alerted me to the existence of Foot Patrol a while back. They’re a group fronted by talented blind multi-instrumentalist T.J. Wade. He’s kinda like Stevie Wonder–if Stevie Wonder had a foot fetish and sang about it in every song he wrote. Seriously, Foot Patrol bills itself “the only foot fetish funk band in existence”.

Thing is, their songs honestly rock. So I can totally imagine some baseball player hearing one of these songs and thinking it sounds good enough for his walk up song, without knowing the backstory (although Wade’s lyrics leave absolutely nothing to the imagination). Don’t believe me? Here’s a sample:

According my friend, Foot Patrol burned down the house the time he
saw them in Austin, and the crowd begged for an encore, but they had
exhausted all their original material. So the band came back out and
played a ridiculously good cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley”. Wow.

* “Nothing Left Inside”, Black Flag
I wanted to pick something from My War/Slip It In-era Flag, but a most of it is super-aggressive and might actually work as walk-up music. Except for this song. A lot like the PiL tune I picked earlier, I think it would just make everyone in the stadium feel wrong and uncomfortable. And fear for their lives.


* “The Blood”, The Cure
I guess most Cure songs would be inappropriate. But you have to give special consideration to a Spanish-themed anti-Christian song. True story: Once upon a time, when I was a Jehovah’s Witness, all the other teens I knew in the congregation loved The Cure. Figure out that one, if you dare.