Race Music

January 24, 2007... A recent post on Vinyl Mine is devoted to 1980s and 1990s shock punker Tesco Vee and his band, the Meatmen, and ends with by asking, "Any good Tesco stories to share?" Well, I'm not sure it's good, but I am sure it's a story...

As a teenager, I thought the Meatmen were a hoot. With songs celebrating bodily function and denigrating homosexuals, the disabled, women, Asians and rastafarians, there were a lot more scared cows than sacred cows when the Meatmen were on the scene.

To me, though, the Meatmen's real target seemed to be the humourless, holier-than-thou segment of the punk scene that claimed to be anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobia, but sure seemed to hate straight, white, males. I suspect these are the kinds of people Eet uw Smakelijk was referring to when it described the mid-to-late 1980s hardcore punk scene as "boring self-righteous goody-two-shoes stuff."

At the time, I was 76% certain the Meatmen weren't racist, sexist or homophobic--at least no more so than the average bunch of young, white men. Then, a few years later, I had a Eureka moment, after which I was 99% certain.

The Meatmen - Orgy of One

Listening to Thelonius in Action one day, I was struck by how grotty some of the sax playing in "Evidence" sounded. I listened to it again and was struck by how familiar it sounded, too.

Thelonious Monk Quartet with Johnny Griffin - Evidence (excerpt)

To me, the grotty guitar solo at the 2:00 mark of the Meatmen song "Orgy of One" sounded like it was inspired by the grotty sax playing in Monk's "Evidence." And no white cat who digs black cat Monk enough to draw inspiration from his records, I thought, could be a racist, sexist or homophobe--at least no more so than the average white cat...

All these years later, I rarely feel the urge to put on my copy of We're the Meatmen ... and You Suck, with its "lovely, coconut-oil" coloured vinyl. The world today is a better place than it was during the 1980s. There's less need to be defensive, so there's less need to be offensive. Mind you, these things can always change.

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