Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Dirty Water 2 (stray pitch)

 From 2011, past Paper Thin Walls' lifespan, so aimed elsewhere, but seems to fit  here:

Dirty Water 2: More Birth of Punk Attitude doesn't have the sometimes spectacular transitions of its recent forerunner (which I'd def want to briefly acknowledge)(orig. take here https://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2012/01/dirty-water-sandwich-some-p-comments.html),  and isn't quite as abrasive, but compiler Kris Needs sets the same pace and perspective right off, veering from  Captain Beefheart's lean and loping "Zig Zag Wanderer" to the cooler rifle range poise of The Human Expression's "Love At Psychedelic Velocity." Zig-zagging from familiar to emerging landmarks continues as Death's "Freaking Out" shrugs over over the cliff, with its stop-start momentum spun around some more by Dizzy Gillespie's "Bebop", with the spiraling electric guitar of (I think) Charlie Christian (there's no "punk jazz" per se on here, but Diz and the live MC5 dig deep and deliver quickly, gratifying rock-head attention spans and appetites).     

Yeah, doo-doo-wopping Silhouttes, strutting off to the poorhouse, smirking "Strange as it seems, all my money turned brown") Suicide suggestively crooning about a "Creature Feature", the Velvet Underground's Live in Texas 69 version of "I'm Waiting For My Man", with its sly classic spoken intro and brown narcotic TX-appropriate new tattoo x boogiemorphic tendencies bleeding through the VU's better known distinguishing marks--yeah, just when all those guys rushing to a peak of cool, we get the one-two punch of Patti Smith's "Piss Factory" and Wayne-to-Jayne County's "Man Enough To Be A Woman" Concise epics, ,bluntly bum-rushing the enemies of promise, and challenging themselves too. And just in case, the Misunderstood's truly flower punk (acid in at least two senses)

 "Children of the Sun" seems a little too grand, the Unrelated Segments' "Story of my Life" immediately brings us back to itchy grievances, warty warning signs and the still-fresh zits of tombstone testimonials. Sometimes it seems like "right band, wrong track", but even then, context can fortify, as Blondie's (lyrically blurry but sonically tonic enough) late 70s "X-Offender" zigs back to the United States of America's "Hard-Coming Love", where chanteuse Dorothy Moskowitz and the USA's male geeks lure each other though  shuddering  psychotronic blossoms of (what turns out to be) foreplay, or at least something left gracefully for generations of imagination, in mid-air. Back to street level again, for the Godz' heartfelt, country-busking serenade, "C'mon little girl turn on" (that's the whole lyric, and all that's needed). These thrift store cowboys get washed through the Lower East Side by the alley waves of  Holy Modal Rounders' "Indian War Whoop." So it goes, jumping back to the late 70s for the rattling b-movie tumult ("I do this every night") of "Imagination" by the sic and aptly named Rudement. 

Contextual momentum or not, some of the daring juxtapositions just don't fit (Woody Guthrie, Big Star, the Flamin Groovies, --possibly more examples of right artist, wrong track). But squinting as sternly as possible (and okay, Faust and some others are growing on me) these two discs still seem to have at least 97:26 of keepers. Main hitch seems to be   I just recently got this, and it's an  April 13 release, so might not fit your projected plans. But thanks for your consideration (sorry this is so long, but it's an involving album) don


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Dirty Water 2 (stray pitch)

 From 2011, past Paper Thin Walls' lifespan, so aimed elsewhere, but seems to fit  here: Dirty Water 2: More Birth of Punk Attitude  doe...