Excremental, Existential, Sexual Shit

August 24, 2006... I read We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk recently. Comprised of snippets of interviews with luminaries of the LA scene from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, it was good fun.

Among the colourful cast of characters, Kim Fowley stood out as a creepy, older Svengali type. Fowley is credited with creating and directing the career of the Runaways, a band of "five teenage girls dressed in leather and lingerie performing heavy metal." My guess is that as teenage girls in the pre-Bust, pre-Bitch, pre-Shameless world, Joan Jett et al were pretty malleable.

Based on what Fowley has to say about the Go-Go's, however, I suspect that he didn't find Belinda Carlisle and her crowd quite as open to suggestion:

"The scene at the Masque and Canterbury got into a lot of decadence and debauchery, and all of the fucking and sucking, and the heroin and the dog fucking and obese shit-assing with the Go-Go's and their early circle. Somewhere in the vomit, the blood and the vaginal pus, Somewhere among the filthy hypo syringes and the blubber, there probably was poetry. Scene cheerleaders got to have their scabied cunts eaten on dirty roach-infested floors while this loopy music raged and the worms crawled, you know. It was excremental, existential, sexual shit at death's door."

I never liked the Go-Go's much, either, so I can't be bothered to find and post one of their songs, but I will post one by another band from the same era of LA punk.

X - Nausea

Until recently, I wasn't much of a fan of X, either. I always thought their music was good, but could never stomach their one-note-echolalia approach to vocals. Actually, I still can't. But they did a few songs, like "Nausea," where it isn't overwhelming... By the way, in case you ain't already node it, that's Ray Manzarek (formerly of the Doors) on the keyboards. Manzarek, who also produced the first two X albums, hung out with 70s era punks at their filthy clubs, as did David Lee Roth.

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