Lost in Tarnslation

July 5, 2007... Rock 'n' Roll is an American music. Like the Blues and Jazz before it, Rock grew out of circumstances specific to the United States of America. Un-Americans can dabble in Rock 'n' Roll, but they'll never really "get" it. This is why, despite decades of effort, British "Rock" is still so effete. This is also why Lul's first LP, Inside Little Oral Annie, is so intriguing.

Lul - Runstan Run

Lul was a rock group active in Holland during the late 1980s and early 1990s. They took the name of their band from the Dutch slang for "prick," and the name of their first LP from the title of a porno flick. (Prick inside Little Oral Annie. Geddit?)

Holland is, of course, the country that foisted Golden Earring on the world. It's a weird place. And that goes double for Friesland, the McDonalds theme park in northern Holland that served as Lul's base of operations.

Lul and friends at Friesland

One of the intriguing things about Inside Little Oral Annie is that it has so few obvious musical reference points. True, the group thanks every band they've ever liked in their liner notes, and some, like Wire and Pere Ubu, more than once. But Lul doesn't really sound like any of them. They allude to fIREHOSE in the lyrics to "New Band," and the guitarist cops licks from King Crimson here and there, but that's it. Other than that, Lul sounds like Lul.

And that's where the whole thing about Un-Americans not "getting" Rock comes in. I mean, listen to "Jessepee Starmaker," a 59-second Bohemian Rhapsody as performed by lobotomites. No red-blooded American would write a song like this.

Lul - Jessepee Starmaker

Lul - Camburist Baby

No red-blooded American would write a song called "Camburist Baby," either. In fact, no one but Lul would write a song called "Camburist Baby," because Lul invented the phrase. Go ahead, G**gle "camburist." You'll see that every one of the handful of references to the word is on a page about Lul, and that none of them shed any light on what exactly a camburist might be. I suspect that, as with the identity of the Robert Volta referred to in the song "Robert Volta," only MOG knows.

Lul - Robert Volta

Yet the intrigue doesn't end there. The lyrics on Inside Little Oral Annie contain repeated uses of the Depression-era euphemisms Hoover Flags (i.e. empty pockets) and Hoovervilles (i.e. shantytowns). But Americans weren't thinking or writing about these things anymore in 1988. Nobody was. Except Lul.

I will leave you with the album's final song, whose inscrutable lyrics ("the insect beamer?") are reproduced below. What more can I say than thank MOG for language barriers!

Lul - Carpet Man

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