Out of Pod Experience

Tom Green is a really good rapper.

Front Line Assembly
Class Wub

Tempo Tantrum - Back to Brixton 2010

Bad Boy

I've been discovering Neil Young and Crazy Horse lately. I deliberately ignored them back in their time, because it was the punk/post-punk/paisley-punk/gothic/New Wave/avant garde/electronics 80s. You had your pick of many moods, all at once. And these loud country folk hard rock punk guys didn't fit in anywhere. But they were pretty intense, out there on the sidelines.

So, many years later, a song from the periphery of consciousness, that always punched me and I always thought I should check out-- Neil Young and Crazy Horse "Powderfinger." Crazy Horse huddled up and laying down simple prairie punk, like Meat Puppets would do later. Neil telling a harsh, harsh poem harder than any punk of the time. Tricky bustard opens up with happy natural cowboy chords, then leads along into grim gruesome realistic psychological poetic storytelling land... Greater intensity and even better in this live batserk/Zenned performance from the time.

Look out, Mama,
there's a white boat
comin' up the river
With a big red beacon,
and a flag,
and a man on the rail
I think you'd better call John,
'Cause it don't
look like they're here
to deliver the mail
And it's less than a mile away
I hope they didn't come to stay
It's got numbers on the side
and a gun
And it's makin' big waves.

Daddy's gone,
my brother's out hunting
in the mountains
Big John's been drinking
since the river took Emmy-Lou
So the powers that be
left me here
to do the thinkin'
And I just turned twenty-two
I was wonderin' what to do
And the closer they got,
The more those feelings grew.

Daddy's rifle in my hand
felt reassurin'
He told me,
Red means run, son,
numbers add up to nothin'
But when the first shot
hit the docks I saw it comin'
Raised my rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why.
Then I saw black,
And my face splashed in the sky.

Shelter me from the powder
and the finger
Cover me with the thought
that pulled the trigger
Think of me
as one you'd never figured
Would fade away so young
With so much left undone
Remember me to my love,
I know I'll miss her.

Sadly, Mark Bell from the influential British electronic group LFO has passed away. Anyone who knows anything about techno will have heard of LFO.

My three favourite LFO tracks:

Shove Piggy Shove

Love Is The Message

And of course, LFO.