Gerry has written in – a highly complimentary and insightful email, for which I thank him profusely - and as mentioned on the programme, I do hope he doesn’t mind if I quote him directly:
“Having, as I said, now listened to the whole catalogue of shows in a semi-condensed timetable … and I assure you that this is an observation and not a criticism – I think there has been a slight drift towards quieter, less overtly aggressive, maybe less angular music as the episodes have unfolded. This doubtless reflects all sorts of factors, both personal and in the wider world: dominant forms of pop music come and go, and much of the more full-on sounds are now made by rap artists and the offshoots of that genre - plus you may not agree with my contention anyway.”
As it happens, I do agree, Gerry, and have been somewhat conscious of this development for some time. I think the reasons for it are partly included in your original comment. Rap and techno are more the direction where we might look for maximum aggression these days. Partly also, whether subconsciously or not, and again as I mention on the episode itself, I think I’ve been subconsciously looking to balance out the chaos that 2020 represented with some calmer art.
But everything’s changed now (I write this at the end of January 2021). We can once again redress the stability of the world with a little well-judged raucousness. This episode dwells on that era of garage rock that retrospectively has been dubbed proto-punk.
That perhaps does it a disservice. These people weren’t merely warming up the audience before the arrival of the main act. They were making the music that made sense to them, twisting rock’n’roll into deviant, nonconformist directions, singing of repressed self-loathing, Vitamin C and Pablo Picasso. Certainly they were a more faithful inheritor of rock’n’roll’s rebellious caterwaul than the conformism of sharp suits, side partings and photogenic smiles that had cluttered up the scene since Elvis joined the army.
Many of you reading this will know all about The Velvets, The Stooges and Captain Beefheart, great artists though they be. So here also are a few less heralded outfits: Los Saicos, Peruvian rebels, Canada’s Simply Saucer and Death from Detroit. All of them, by and large, neglected at the time and rediscovered years later.
And here’s to a little more compensatory chaos in 2021.
Tracklist:
White light, white heat, The Velvet Underground
1969, The Stooges
I’m not like everybody else, The Kinks
96 tears, ? and The Mysterians
Pushin’ too hard, The Seeds
Oh, how to do now, The Monks
Strychnine, The Sonics
Big eyed beans from Venus, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Demolicion, Los Saicos
Vitamin C, Can
Bullet proof nothing, Simply Saucer
Blank generation, Richard Hell
Keep on knocking, Death
Redondo Beach, Patti Smith
Pablo Picasso, The Modern Lovers
Monday morning gunk, Radio Birdman
Ghost riders, Suicide