The Surreal Comedy Of The Young Southpaw
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In which Young Southpaw dives right into the chaos surrounding the world of queries within song and film, showing David Bowie to be – as you’d expect – valiantly at the front of both
Taking in Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight, Sweet Child O’Mine, Axl Rose, Guns N Roses, Paradise City, Depeche Mode, The Wizard Of Oz, Star Wars, and much more
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In which Young Southpaw looks into the theories about the great psychoanalyst C.G. Jung’s time as a member of The Ramones, detailing the band’s part in the whole Construction Time Again – Appetite For Destruction cycle while calling bull on Freud’s Louisa May Alp-cott speculations, and much else
Taking in the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Live Aid, The Clash, Young Frankenstein, David Bowie, Eurythmics, R.E.M., Subhumans, Sonic Youth, etc.
“Lotsa people be like ‘Southpaw, you crazy! Talking bout Jung’s influence on the 80s records while skippin’ over his whole involvement with the punk movement like that. As if the Spirit of 77 never even happened. But people have been asking this question since the dawn of time – who was Carl Jung’s favourite OG punk band?’
I mean Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks you know seem more Freud’s cup of tea. I’m not saying he had tea made out of…male members, not even pandas though I’ve heard, I’ve heard that’s an aphrodisiac… But I just don’t know how that would have any bearing on who Freud… or anyone’s favourite punk band was… Unless it was like Never Mind The Bullocks just put, ya know, the other thing…in a cup a tea
But punk was rebelling against all that! Or so they claimed. I mean Buzzcocks, that’s your caffeine hit right there. But we can’t just sit around drinking tea all day – no matter what it’s made out of – to try and figure out where Freud’s punk allegiances lie. I mean maybe he had his own underground band goin’ on in Vienna, ya know. That although it stayed true to the spirit of punk, it was a bit too avant-garde for them to be invited on the Anarchy In The UK tour. Then some people even claim that, fed up with this lack of commercial success, despite wishing to at the same time remain true to his artistic ideals – I mean you can see where psychoanalysis came from – well some claim that, with all this going on, Freud actually became a founding member of Ultravox
But then ya know with Live Aid and everything, We Are The World, I mean what a throwing down the gauntlet to Jung. I mean if anything We Are The Collective Unconscious
But I mean Jung’s punk bands – woo! – I mean you’d prolly think of The Clash first of all, right? With all that stuff going on underneath the surface of consciousness, all you have to reconcile. Or maybe the Clash should have been Freud and Jung’s supergroup, ya know, after their famous split
But I’m just gonna say it. I mean though I have no documentary proof of this, I think it was The Ramones. I mean let’s look at the facts
Young Frankenstein comes out in 1974. I mean obviously they couldn’t spell it with a J, it’s an American film. But ya know, it takes place over there around Central Europe. Ya know right near Jung’s native Switzerland. The alps ya know, like ALP in Finnegans Wake and ya know Joyce is buried in Zurich. Louisa May Alp-cott, ya know… Not quite. I mean Little Men and Little Women, Freud you can’t be usin’ that, that wasn’t her name. But ya know Alps, the Sound Of Music ya know, predictin’ punk rock! And Julie Andrews’ film before that was Mary Poppins ya know – pop, pop music. I mean no wonder so much punk just sounded like pop songs played real fast, ya know…
But back across the ocean, over in New York City in 1974 the Ramones are forming. And you know David Bowie always knew what was really goin’ on. I mean next year in 1975 he goes and releases Young Americans to let us all know…that this up an coming punk band…are probably gonna be the famous Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung’s favourite punk band. Bowie was hip, man
Then there’s the whole thing that people claim Jung was actually in the Ramones for a while. For a lot longer than you’d expect too. I mean the arguments about this go back and forth, and prolly will for aeons ya know. But the story goes that when the Ramones released Pleasant Dreams, Jung felt it was time to speak up. For dreams, can be anything but pleasant. It was a conversation he would also later clarify with the Eurythmics… And so during the European leg of the Ramones tour in November of that year they found the time to meet up, at a Burger King – Jung’s suggestion, thinking it might force some sort of unconscious confrontation with the lyrics of Oh Oh I Love Her So – and, sources say, here Joey Johnny and the gang were so impressed that they just immediately handed Jung a leather jacket and jeans. Magically just his size. And from there on out, they got down to some serious work. C.G. Ramone paving the way for C.J. to come thru in ’89. The band honouring Jung right before this happened with naming their greatest hits collection Ramones Mania. And then when C.J. joined the first album is called Brain Drain?! That’s almost enough for me to rest my case
But let’s look at the facts. Right after this little talk at the Burger King – some say it was in Spain and that Mondo Bizarro points to this, others claim it would’ve without a doubt been in Germany – but anyways the next Ramones album was Subterranean Jungle. Jung’s name right in there. And what a better metaphor for the collective unconscious than a subterranean jungle. My goodness, those boys were onto something. And what’s the big hit off of Subterranean Yungle or Jungle however you wanna pronounce it? Well only Psycho Therapy!
This was in 1983 too, tying into the whole theory broached last episode that the great cycle of the world can be seen in the movements between that year’s Construction Time Again and 1987’s Appetite for Destruction. 1985 being the midway point, the center of it all, where the craziest things can happen. Like David Lee Roth leavin’ Van Halen. And that precisely did occur. R.E.M. was hip to this early on too, man. Again an issue of dreams not being so sweet. Psychic TV, woah, there ya go. But they had that album Dreams Less Sweet released in 1983 same year as Sweet Dreams are made of this who am I to disagree etc.
But R.E.M. right smack in the middle of the whole Construction/Destruction cycle, right there in 85 go on and release Fables Of The Reconstruction! Trying to hip the world to the fact that there’s a better way, the synthesis the sages have known for ages is coming. I mean look at some of those songs too – Maps & Legends, Life & How To Live It…foooo!
The Subhumans too! Another choice for favourite punk bands. I mean they broke up in 85 but they knew what was up back in 83, released From The Cradle To The Grave to point to the start of the cycle all over again
I mean it was a crazy world in 1985. Especially at the beginning with the proposed balance approaching, Freud planning Live Aid from the afterlife and all that. I mean it was all too much for Carmen Sandiego. And to show you how crazy it was, no one was really asking the question ‘if Carmen Sandiego is anywhere else in the world besides San Diego then what is really going on?’
But the Ramones knew. Especially with ol C.G.’s help – the C.G. I in the triangle as some were calling it – I mean they knew what was coming and prepared for it, openly declaring in 1984 that they were Too Tough To Die. Knowing that things often don’t survive such transitional phases as the switch to the Appetite side of the spectrum. They even went so far as to piss off Freud with Mama’s Boy, making sure they weren’t asked to participate in the Live Aid proceedings
1985 saw no new album from the Ramones
But 1986 with Animal Boy saw them heading back towards the primal, Mental Hell off that album further evidence of the Swiss doctor’s behind the scenes workings
And then, most tellingly, 1987 rolls around – the year we hit peak Appetite For Destruction. And we get Halfway To Sanity. I Lost My Mind and I Wanna Live bold proclamations of the journey they were on
And then as boldly as it began, it all seemed to scatter. A Slothrop-like fading out of the narrative… Was this an effect of the cycle? Or something else? Some claim they couldn’t have a C.G. and a C.J. both in the band while others were all for this balancing the J’s of Johnny and Joey, and with Jung’s role never being clearly defined or at least not made public, it made things all the more problematic. Especially with his last name startin’ with a J
Some look for him going on into the future, providing inspiration for countless other bands. I mean Sonic Youth? C’mon – Jung, Youth. I mean as if Expressway to Yr Skull and Schizophrenia weren’t enough they only go and release Goo in 1990. Carl Goo! Though people will point to Confusion Is Sex putting them more in the Freudian camp. This debut of course coming out in 1983. And thus the great cycle continues”
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In which Young Southpaw explores Carl Gustav Jung’s relationship with albums released in the 80s and beyond, wonders if Jung and Axl Rose ever actually did have a band together, shows the effect of Van Halen & Def Leppard on his Anima/Animus theory, explains how Depeche Mode and Guns N Roses embody the process of the great cycle of life, and so much more
Taking in The Creatures, The Police, Inherent Vice, ABBA, Thom Yorke, Radiohead, shamen, Appetite For Destruction, Freud, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, L.A. Guns, Girl, Young Guns, 101, the spirit world, the collective unconscious, Construction Time Again, 5150, etc.
“People musta been all like ‘Jung, you crazy! Postulatin’ a collective unconscious like that. What you playin’ at? Everything’s connected? I mean even in a game of Connect Four, there’s gotta be a winner and a loser and then the game stops. How you go about explainin’ it, the rules are different in your dreams?’ Tryin’ to laugh him off… And keep in mind, this being Swiss German, they’re all pronouncin’ it Connect Fear… Little do they know they’re playin’ right into the great man’s theories. But Jung remains cool as ice, sticks to his guns, he knows what he’s talkin’ about. He’s all in touch with the future, like he knows Van Halen and Def Leppard are gonna come along. Heck, he’s even channelin’ them for some his theories… You know singin’ all ‘Anima!’ Confusin’ the title of that Def Lep single with the tune of VH’s Panama you know… But can you blame him? Things get all mixed up in the collective unconscious… going ‘Anima! Animuh-huh-huh-huh-huh,us’… And it starts to give him his Anima/Animus theory and in the process providing Siouxsie and Budgie the title for their third Creatures record… Of course not the first time Jung was involved in naming albums. He was apparently doin’ that left and right, givin’ old Stingy and the Police boys Synchronicity… Of course I mean the irony of it being that no one’s policing the collective unconsciousness. You can just steal people’s phrases and release multi-platinum albums there without anyone batting an eye… Or any royalties coming back across the aeons… Or I guess just decades, ya know… Then ol’ Thom Yorke of Radiohead – I mean wasn’t Jung the OG Radiohead pickin’ up all the signals like this… Well I guess not, I mean shamen have been doin’ it for ages… But just this year Thom Yorke released an album too called Anima… Which surprisingly was not just a covers album of precisely one half of that Creatures record… And he made a short film to go along with it directed by Paul Thomas Anderson… Who you’ll all know made the only film of a Tommy P novel, ol’ Inherent Vice!… Which you’ll recall had lots of police stuff in it – I mean woah ya know…all Bigfoot Bjornsen and all that… I mean does the actual Bigfoot, ya know Sasquatch, have an anima himself, provided this creature – woah – is male… Or you know an animus if Bigfoot’s a female… And woah though Bigfoot Bjornsen, well I mean who’s one of the most famous Bjorn’s of all-time?… Only him outta ABBA… And talk about the perfect balance between male and female, they were 2 and 2, ya know. The Noah’s Ark of pop music. And Jung wasn’t even Swedish to know all this
But Jung’s not too concerned with credit, or with all these naysayers. He knows what’s coming up in 1987, anticipatin’ it like a mofo, when he will be justified with the release of Appetite For Destruction and it’s lead off track, Welcome To The Jung-le. I mean of course Axl couldn’t pronounce it like that, ya know give the game away. I mean it’s not that easy, like the next song on the record would imply. Oh you wanna go through it track by track? Talk about takin’ the Nightrain from Zurich to Vienna to go hang out with Freudy Freud. Out To Get Me, Mr. Brownstone… well I guess I’m just namin’ tunes right now but ya know, you wait til you get to side two with Think About You, Sweet Child O’Mine, and You’re Crazy. I mean start thinkin’ about those songs and Freud’s theories and you won’t have to look very far. You just need a little Patience, as they would later sing. There’s the rumor that Freud once threw him outta his study for punning on that GNR song whilst talking about their, their medical patients ya know, but I’m not buyin’ it. But you can hear him, clear as day, saying to Freud ‘my way, your way, anything goes’
But gettin’ back to Welcome To The Jungle, I think Jung himself was prolly expectin’ it to be a more straightforward cover of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood single ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’. You know with the band being from Liverpool and all and Jung having had that crazy dream about Liverpool that he recounts in his autobiography. But Axl had different ideas. I mean imagine if Jung and Axl had a band and it was just called Gustav & Roses, ya know. Keep the G, keep the G U part of the Guns. Like keeping the rest of the history the same, and by this I’m not implying that Jung and Tracii Guns are the same person. I’m just condensing things for simplicities’ sake. But if the band LA Gustav combined with Hollywood Rose… like if Jung spent some time in LA, like as, as a street performer. Maybe a mime, yeah probably a mime, sometimes being a mime is the only way to blow off some psychoanalytical steam, especially on the other side of the world like that… But Jung’s just hangin’ out in Hollywood one summer, Echo Park, Silverlake… Ridin’ a unicycle between these neighborhoods just to confuse people you know, ‘let ‘em think I’m a clown,’ he says. Not out loud of course cause he is, at heart, a mime. But because he’s not actually sayin’ anything ever, no one knows a thing about him. They just start callin’ him LA Gustav and then soon enough he’s in a band with Axl Rose, sellin’ millions of albums, gettin’ songs on the Terminator 2 soundtrack. I tell you the collective unconscious is a wild place…
But now that I think about it, of course LA Guns are involved! I mean way back before all this there was that English glam band Girl – ya know, the whole anima concept – and who was the lead singer? Well, only Phil Lewis of course! Later to front LA Guns. But back in Girl Phil Collen was playin’ guitar – just like Bowie said Ziggy did! So when Jung’s all channelin’ Def Leppard’s Animal but to the melody of Van Halen’s Panama of course but actually singing Anima, well you know Girl’s all mixed up in there too…
But all this is a just a precursor for what he senses is coming, as all the shamen have throughout the ages. Which is 1988 rolls around, and what movie is released to great fanfare? Young Guns, of course! Junnnnng Guuunnns. And this is right after Appetite for Destruction comin’ out in 87 – Jung Guns & Roses ya know – I mean Jung was clearly on that spirit trip with Lou Diamond Phillips, Diamond In The Rough, the Rough & Tumble…all those tumbleweeds blowin’ in the desert, you know… La Bamba comin’ out the year before, same year as Appetite though years after that Disney cartoon La Bambi. But Ritchie Valens ya know and this movie with Billy The Kid, well Kid Rock’s last name is Ritchie! It’s amazin’ what you learn in the spirit world. And this is only like Spirit World 101, ya know like that Depeche Mode live album that came out just the year after, in 89. Eighty-nine, am I right?
But ya know some say it’s all just a great cycle of that earlier Depeche Mode album Construction Time Again and then Appetite For Destruction. And then a smaller number of those somes say that one day there will be a great synthesis and it will be Appetite For Construction Time Again. Which most will credit Depeche Mode for predicting with their pre-album single Get The Balance Right
Now Jung he didn’t discriminate. He could listen to both Depeche Mode and Guns N Roses without worryin’ anyone’s gonna call him a poseur. Ya know catchin’ their soundwaves off the great collective unconscious wireless way back in the 30s or let’s just say 50s ya know to make it seem even. Like 50/50 showin’ he doesn’t really favor either band despite possibly havin’ been in Gustav & Roses with Axl, and I mean Axl was a big Depeche Mode fan too. Apparently called them up when they were comin to the States and sang them Somebody over the phone. So I think it’s gotta be 50/50. Though sadly there are no real records to indicate what he thought of 5150 and the split with Roth. I mean if he’s acceptin’ synthpop like this but also a fan of guitars as shown with GNR and of course him gettin’ the Anima concept from Panama…well I think he’d be cool with 5150. Might even claim it’s the best of both worlds, though careful to not mention in the 50s the psychic schism he could foresee with Roth leaving the mighty VH in 1985. Which you’ll be sure to notice is the exact midpoint between Construction Time Again coming out in 1983 and the 1987 release of Appetite”
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In which Young Southpaw is dazzled by the heights and depths of rainbow tornado junkies and speculates what the wolves have to do with it all.
Taking in Ronnie James Dio, The Go! Team, chiropractors, The Wizard Of Oz, Scorpions, Duran Duran, Wolfsbane, Elton John, etc.
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In which Young Southpaw ponders the potential of water-based Cannonball Adderley album covers, Depeche Mode in pie form, if otters – those perfect teatime companions – blink in and out of existence or to Hoth and back, and much much more
Taking in The Beatles, ‘Abbey Road’, Cannonball Run, Meg Ryan, Can, the letter H, ‘Otter Than July’, Star Wars, rattlesnakes, Duran Duran, candy, sugar, etc.
“Does Cannonball Adderley have any album covers of him just jumpin’ into a swimming pool? Cause that would be amazin’, ya know. Summertime fun. Or maybe even in winter ya know, why limit, especially in jazz. And like with cool jazz, maybe it could be like the polar bear club? Him just bounding off an iceberg into the freezing Artic sea. I mean people used to put a lot into their album covers. Well, I mean the Beatles wanted to call Abbey Road Everest but, well I’ve heard different stories, that it cost too much or that they didn’t wanna travel all that way just for a photo. But you got to, ya know! I mean imagine if The Beatles did that?! They coulda been the biggest band in the world! Alright I’m just playin’ with y’all but I mean imagine if John Lennon addressed imagining them making the trip on Imagine? And then we all get sucked into some infinite time loop? But back to Cannonball Adderley cause that’s like the best name ever. He played the alto, ya know – altitude… Maybe he shoulda gone to Everest! I mean what would Abbey Road have been like if it had all hard bop sax lines all over it? Well maybe it did, we don’t know. And they just didn’t make the final mix. Cannonball all doublin’ McCartney when he starts getting’ real into it on Oh Darling. I mean it’s a shame they took out the sounds of Cannonball jumping into the sea on Octopus’ Garden. I mean had he known they weren’t gonna use those recordings, would he still have taken time out of his day to travel down to the beach with a bunch of equipment to do it? But getting’ back to Miles, I mean if Cannonball had been in his band for Birth Of The Cool, shouldn’t that album cover have been Cannonball just shootin’ outta the womb? Knees clasped to his chest with his sax already in his hands? Man, there could be so many album covers. Like when prog started goin’ all wizardy, they could have ol Cannonball jumpin’ off the turrets of a castle. And of course expandin’ it to film, I mean had they known he was gonna die in 1975 they should have moved up the shooting schedule for all the Cannonball Runs. Well, I guess there were only two but I mean didn’t we all – don’t we all – want a third ya know? For the trifecta? Have it just be all crazy jazz with the crazy cars. I mean this would be the best movie ever! Burt Reynolds & Dom Deluise as jazz musicians, drivin’ some sorta crazy, well not a Honda Jazz, though that might actually be the craziest car they could possibly use! Dom Deluise all playin’ a bassoon in the passenger seat, addin’ to the soundtrack. And ya know with the bassoon being a double reed instrument would lead many to conjecture that both Donna and Oliver Reed had been written into the original script as being the dynamic duo who wins it this time. I mean that would be hilarious, ya know. But would that mean that ol’ Cannonball Adderley wasn’t the winner? Of any of the three films? That can’t be right. And which way are they goin’ this time anyway? I mean in the first film it was Connecticut to LA and in number two they were tryin’ to go back the opposite way but they never made it past Las Vegas. Well personally I think they should finish what they started ,ya know like that Van Hagar song, but go back to the city of angels to start fresh and go LA to Connecticut, ya know the Nutmeg State. Well maybe ol Cannonball’s partner could be like Nut Meg Ryan and she’s the favourite, it being her namesake and all. Ya know what’s crazy is that Nut Meg Ryan was also in the film City Of Angels, that remake of Wim Wenders’ Wings Of Desire with Nicolas Cage. Woo! That’d be awesome if her and Cannonball’s car in the film was named Wings Of Desire as a cool little reference ya know. Even though cars don’t have wings. Well did they in The Jetsons? Naw, I guess it was all just space age technology for old George and Jane…
But there’s no need to take it into space. I mean that’d just be cheating. Besides it’s a feel-good summertime movie, for us here on Earth to enjoy. Ya know like that Love & Rockets song, Here On Earth. Well I guess that’s confusin’ my point with the rockets and all. But I mean drivin’ cross country, when’s the best to do it so Donna Reed’s hair doesn’t get all messed up even though she’s not in the movie? Cause summer’s hot man, even if you’re takin the Northern route. And then of course you’re gonna be tempted to go see Paisley Park and ya just won’t have time if you’re gonna win the race…
But summer man… I remember there was that crazy compilation that Fierce Panda put out called Otter Than July which had a Rosita song. Which was that band after Kenickie. It was so good, Sugar, ya know… I don’t know if it’s the same Sugar that that crazy Fall Out Band were later talkin’ about, or even if it was addressing one half of who The Archies were singing to with Sugar Sugar… I mean there’s a lot of sugar in pop music, it’s like all sugar. Well maybe not Depeche Mode ya know. Well definitely after Speak N Spell when Martin Gore took it all to the minor key, ya know. But I mean let’s not be so quick here, cause before I knew that Depeche Mode translates as ‘fast fashion’ ya know, ya got that ‘peche’ in there which is French for peach and you know how I was talking about songs in soup form last time? Well doesn’t have to be just soup, I mean how bout a big ol slice a peach pie, A LA DEPECHE MODE! Ya know, it just like comes with the essence of Depeche Mode in it – not like all the band members, I’m not advocating cannibalism – but like that feeling you get when you listen to Black Celebration or Violator. I guess you could put it in a can. Mix it up with some prime Krautrock ya know. Like Tago Mago or Ege Bamyasi’s the Can album with the can on it, talk about meta. Though I mean of course they’re going to be on their own album – has any band ever done that? Not been on their own album? Cause they’re too busy at the diner orderin’ up slices of peach pie a la Depeche Mode…
How did I get here? Oh yeah, Otter Than July… That’s crazy, ya know. You get rid of an H, and I usually never approve of gettin’ rid of an H ya know. It bein’, well, one of my favourite letters ya know. It’s got the parallel lines like Blondie and then the connecting one like Elastica or The Stones. Kinda says it all about life in one letter ya know, as we travel down, strangers on this road we are on, as Dave Davies sang on that Kinks song. All going straight ahead on our own and that tiny connecting line in the H is the only thing that brings us together. I mean maybe that represents peach pie a la Depeche Mode, somethin’ I assume we can all get behind…
But I mean it’s July right now and I haven’t seen any otters. Though I haven’t seen any otters in a while. I’d love to ya know, like Philippe from Achewood. Be amazin’ to have tea with an otter, ya know. I mean they got two right in their name, always one to share. I mean that’s where they got their reputation as the most sociable animal from, they can share their tea while still keepin’ the two in their name. Something we can learn from the otter kingdom. And probably Mr. T too. The A–Team…T & A… Well, there’s a crass, naw it’s not crass, it’s the human body, what am I sayin’? Or you could go A then T. Like AT-ATs ya know from Hoth in Empire Strikes Back. Hoth in Summertime. I’ve never understood why the first three letters of planet Hoth, the ice planet, were H-O-T HOT ya know? And if you were in Europe you’d pronounce it Hot too, ya know like the silent H in Thames, that river over in London. But I mean there’s no rivers on Hoth ya know, it’s too darn cold. I mean did anyone working on the film raise this issue? Is it some sort of metaphysical conundrum? Are we supposed to be taking it that it isn’t really an ice planet at all, but just pure fire? Then why was Luke all frozen like that? Is it like when you run the bathtub and it’s so hot it actually feels freezing? While burning your skin off, burning from the in-naw, it’s not even burnin’ from the inside. It’s burning from the out-side. Like the opposite of Bauhaus, you know. And it necessitated slicing open a tauntaun – more T’s and A’s right there, and slicin’ it’s like a Pixies and anti-Bauhaus mash up over here. I mean are Tauntauns like Hoth’s version of otters? And Otter Than July, it’s not like otters disappear for some seasons ya know. I think they’re here year round, they just don’t blink in and out of existence. Or do they? Oscillating back and forth between being otters here and tauntauns on the fictional ice planet Hoth? I don’t think it works that way. You could be having tea with them at anytime, or more accurately, they’d be having tea with you – they got teas to spare ya know. I mean what other animals have a double T in their name? I mean I know it doesn’t automatically mean these animals have hot beverages to share. Hmmm… rattlesnakes… not so much… I wouldn’t wanna share no tea with no rattlesnake. Though it might be fun ya know, musical teatime. I’m all confused now, but I mean don’t they have like venom? You never know if you’re gettin’ venomous tea, it’d be a minefield, like rattlesnake tea roulette. Double T in there too. Kinda like when people eat those poisonous Japanese blowfish, it’s the thill of…not dying… Of course it’s not like the blowfish is servin’ themselves up… suicidal… Hootie & The Suicidal Blowfish… maybe not even suicidal. Maybe they’re just offerin’ themselves for the greater good ya know. Like Harrison Ford wanted Han Solo to do in Jedi…
But rattlesnakes, they don’t even have any hands, not a one, how are they going to serve you tea? They’re just sittin’ there shakin’ it, makin’ music, like a tambourine player ya know. Imagine havin’ a live rattlesnake mic’d up onstage. Another one for that John Lennon song, I guess. You’d have to imagine it, you wouldn’t want to do that. Then again bands don’t have tambourine players, it’s usually singers who pick one up when there’s a break in the vocals so they can be doin’ something when they’re not singin’. Ya know smackin’ against their bum and whatnot, the side of their thigh, while they’re doin’ the last chorus or whatever. Imagine doin’ that with a live rattlesnake, that would just be insane! I mean first of all I always picture rattlesnakes as coiled, and you go and grab one by the back of the head, start smackin’ it against ya – cause they’re not that loud ya know, you wouldn’t be able to hear it really – and it’d just be dangerous. And everyone…no one would be payin’ attention to the song, why are they doin’ this in the first place? The whole audience would just be like gobsmacked, thinkin’ when’s this singer gonna die? Or when are they gonna put down the snake ya know. We always have choices ya know. Just put down the snake…
Duran Duran might be into somethin’ like this, ya know Union Of The Snake. But what would it be uniting with? Well maybe…maybe the union is just this rattlesnake fallin’ in love with a tambourine. But you can’t count on this to happen for the live show, it’s not like either of them are actors. So for the performance of Union Of The Snake every night the band just go offstage and a rattlesnake slithers on, sees a tambourine stage right and they fall in love. And if you’re in an arena, how are people gonna see somethin’ that small on stage? I mean even with the video footage, be hard to tell that they’re fallin’ in love. Crazy ideas Duran Duran have sometimes…
And Simon Le Bon seems too smart to be bangin’ a rattlesnake against himself. This whole idea seems like something an up and coming band would be doin’ for attention. Unless they’re like true artists ya know, some sort of…shamen… Just channelin’ whatever…
But bringin’ a rattlesnake in the studio – for that sooooounddd ya know. What if this rattlesnake becomes like a permanent member of your band? Starts demandin’ stuff like Van Halen’s brown M&Ms bowl. Do rattlesnakes eat M&Ms? I don’t know! Maybe they do. Maybe they love M&Ms… I mean I can’t imagine a more appropriate candy. Actually I can, I take it back! I dare stand corrected. Ya know, with their little tongue all flickerin’ out – the Jolly Rancher is the ultimate candy for the rattlesnake. For any snake I would imagine. Well no! I’m not gonna go on record as sayin’ that. Let’s just go with rattlesnakes for now. I mean boas and anacondas where they squeeze the victim, you might want like a Twix. That’d be crazy to try and like squeeze it so the wafer pops out all in one go. In one piece too, and you’re just left with the chocolate, ya know just for the spectacle of seein’ like, of seein’ like the cookie shoot out from the chocolate… like a cannonball!”
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In which Young Southpaw contemplates how the Welsh pronounce the word, where Van Halen’s brown M&M’s ended up, what Ozzy Osbourne’s comedy career would’ve been like while assuring Paul McCartney he wouldn’t be called a poseur if he too wanted to bite the head off a live bat, and much more
Taking in the word ‘ravenous’, ravens, geese, Edgar Allen Poe, Michael Caine, Batman, Black Sabbath, Thunderball, Mother Goose, etc.
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In which Young Southpaw asks are Def Leppard the Wounded Healer Beethovens of the musical world? Does there still exist a renegade Gaulish village inside of Sheffield? Why are all these ocelots obsessed with yachting? Why isn’t there an Asterix & Obelix adventure where they adopt a child with Kyle Minogue? Plus much more hijinx & intrigue
Taking in the films Beethoven, Who’s That Girl?, Wildcats, and Overboard, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Duran Duran, Rio, Led Zeppelin, jungle cats, On Through The Night, Pyromania, Hysteria, French, Tintin, The Wizard Of Oz, The Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Bill Haley & The Comets, etc.
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Young Southpaw recalls sitting in a hot tub on the eve of Live Aid, Facetiming with Ian Curtis about his love of mini-golf in the afterlife, poses the all-important question ‘did Sartre ever see Joy Division’, conjectures about worlds made entirely of soup and songs, etc.
Taking in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Van Halen, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the Chinese Zodiac, New Order, Love Vigilantes, Dr. Who, Phil Rudd, and much more…
“Speaking of Live Aid last time, I remember it was the eve of that great event, and I was sittin’ in a hot tub FaceTiming with Ian Curtis. It was weird, there were like two days in 1985 when like all this stuff that we now know and take for granted was available back then, just came out of nowhere and everybody had everything. It was like those scenes in Buffy when her little sister appears and there’s all this crazy stuff like ripping and tearing open the sky and these giant beasts would just burst into view. It was like that for like 48 Hours, not the film, that came out a couple years before though you could actually see the sequel Another 48 Hours that came out in 1990 for these two days in 1985. It was playin’ at all the cinemas. And of course Buffy was available then so of course everyone was just watchin’ Buffy all the time. And then like everything disappeared so that’s like why it wasn’t that far-fetched, why it seemed familiar to Buffy when her sister came back like that…
But it was weird man cause I was like sittin’ there, lookin’ at Ian Curtis over there in the afterlife, you know. And he has no idea even who New Order is. He’s just too busy playin’ mini-golf. I mean they have crazy mini-golf tournaments you know in the astral plane, as you can imagine. Imagine like a mini-golf set up like the 10 Sephiroth, that would be crazy. Like the Tree Of Life depiction with all the circles and pathways, I mean how would that even go? Ian explained it but like he was using, I mean I understood the mystical terminology of what he was saying but it was the golf talk that confused me. Which reminds me of my favourite joke:
‘What’s a golfer’s favourite number?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t remember how scoring in golf works’
But you know the 10 holes and 32 paths I was right along with. Though I mean maybe this is forbidden for me to even be speaking about. And there’s no way for me to get back in touch with Ian Curtis now cause there’s no way to FaceTime with the dead even today. That’s still comin’. It was just those two days in 1985, ya know the Year of the Ox, the most spiritual of all the Chinese zodiacal animals, you know. Then Buffy the Vampire Slayer the film came out a few years later in 1992, which, speaking of the Chinese animals, was the same year that Tiger Woods made his pro debut. Though of course you could’ve seen it live on tv or even on YouTube during those two days in 1985…
Now that I think about it…this have been a dream…. That I had recently too. I hadn’t even heard Joy Division in 1985. That woulda been weird ya know, had I just been FaceTiming with this guy Ian Curtis, who died in 1980 and is obsessed with Kabbalistic mini-golf, and I didn’t even know who he was, you know! I’m trying to remember the first time I heard Joy Division – Transmission… Novelty… Unknown Pleasures… Well maybe this wasn’t a dream cause those three titles, especially Unknown Pleasures, would definitely sum up the undead playin’ these mystical forms of mini-golf. I can’t think of a, well I’m sure there are plenty of things that are unknown and pleasurable but by the very definition, we don’t know about them. Well, I’m sure I could have asked him had we more time back in this spectral window in 1985, the day before and day of Live Aid. And the thing is like unless you started watchin’ Buffy like the first night and got real obsessed, you know the whole second day this window was available, everyone was watchin’ Live Aid…
It was a weird time, man. I mean Roth had left Van Halen so you knew somethin’ like this might happen. But you could never tell where nor when to expect it. You know now that you could just be livin’ your life and at any given moment things like David Lee Roth no longer being in Van Halen could be not just a possibility but a reality…
That’s weird that after Ian Curtis…departed, you know…that New Order then went on to become this crazy synthpop band and…Van Halen did the same thing now that I think about it. Just like on Joy Division’s ‘Closer’ there were also hints of it on ‘1984’. The writing was on the wall as they say. Perhaps the very wall that David Lee Roth has his back against the record machine on in Jump, ya know…
And then ‘Why Can’t This Be Love?’…Why Can’t This Be Love Vigilantes, ya know?! Well, there are many, many answers to that question, you know I mean cause that song is like the first time Bernard Sumner ever wrote like a direct lyric and that’s, that’s what it’s about? Still freaks me out to this day. And you know like plain and simple, even if you don’t know who New Order is, or the song – I assume everyone knows who Van Halen is, I mean that’s probably the one safe assumption anyone can ever make – but even if you don’t know about New Order, the answer to Why Can’t This Be Love Vigilantes is either going to be ‘because it’s something else’, because Love Vigilantes already happened… I mean I can’t imagine a world where literally everything in it was the New Order song Love Vigilantes! Like even soup?! How would that work? I mean songs in soup form…would be…pretty amazing actually, man. You take a mouthful and it all just starts vibratin’ at the right frequency and you’re in heaven. Like that Pixies song ya know… I know it came from Eraserhead! But Eraserhead and soup, that’s terrifying! I mean Eraserhead was a terrifying enough film already. But you think about like puttin’ a spoonful a soup in your mouth and then someone comes with some form of eraser than can erase liquid! Would that just be a vacuum? Imagine tryin’ to eat soup with someone just jammin’ a vacuum hose in your mouth. I mean that should be an Olympic sport, ya know. Man & soup versus vacuum. It’s symbolic, really, ya know, of Life itself… The whole primordial soup and the vacuum of space…WOO! I mean maybe it shouldn’t be an Olympic sport, be too heavy ya know. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother trying to eat soup. But then of course he is heavy philosophically speaking and of course a little heavier physically too with the added weight of the soup to his mass. This is getting all too much and well, if it was a dream or not, I coulda asked Ian Curtis about this. I mean is this coming? Will there be a time when life just consists of people trying to eat soup cause it’s…Love Vigilantes by New Order…but then there are like these vacuuming forces… Like the Daleks, I guess. This is prolly what Dr. Who was really tryin’ to say. But they had to get it around the censors as television is much closer to a vacuum than it is to soup. I mean when you go to the doctor when you’re sick, what does he tell ya? He tells ya to eat soup! Ya know, give your stomach a rest. Let your digestive system take a little break and let everything heal itself of its own accord. Dr. Who just made this all the more cool. Imagine if the Tardis was full of soup. That would be rad! Ya know like this…gigantic hottub. It doesn’t look too big on the outside but once you’re inside it’s just full of soup…that you can bathe in and eat – I don’t know if I’d wanna do that…I mean that’s as wack as that Van Hagar song ‘Inside’ that closes out 5150, ya know. Maybe they do it all on the time on Gallifrey. All those giant turtles, ya know, just swimmin’ through the soup. But I’m not sure I’m ready…
But I mean if this was a dream, maybe I can ask…ol’ Jean-Paul Sartre…what was really goin’ on. I mean he was prolly there lurkin’ in the back of my dreams like he almost always is. Quite frankly I’m surprised he and I haven’t discussed Live Aid before. But he might remember ya know – oh yeah, you were FaceTiming with Ian Curtis. I mean I hope he’s not bitter than I wasn’t FaceTiming with him. I actually have no idea what Sartre was doing during those two days when all of technology was possible. Well maybe he was right there in the hottub with me. I should keep my mouth shut, I don’t wanna offend him by not remembering…
Sartre is all about those New Order songs. Loved Joy Division too. That Les Bains Douches live album that later came out, recorded in Paris. I mean maybe Sartre was there. Did Sartre ever see Joy Division? And if he did…is that what gave birth to my psyche? It’s a question every man asks himself from time to time. Ya never can tell with these things. I mean I trust ol’ Jeanny-Paul to tell me the truth. And like ‘Dreams Never End’, that’s the first song on New Order’s first album. Maybe this whole thing was a dream. So it doesn’t much matter whether I was FaceTiming with Ian Curtis in a hottub or not. The hottub was not filled with soup, I can clarify that. If there’s one thing I know…is that when I was FaceTiming with Ian Curtis on the eve of Live Aid…whilst in a hot tub…that the hottub was not full of soup… It was a regular, regulation hot tub – just like Rub-A-Dub-Dub Reggae Hot Tubs, ya know. I do not know what Phil Collins was doing at the time, or any of the Concord employees. I’m not sure it really matters. But you didn’t even have to pay for FaceTime, it was the same as it is now. It wasn’t like Skype where you had to pay to make a phone call and ‘the afterlife’ just appeared in that long list of all the countries. And anyways it was a video call…
Now that I think about it, he was playing mini-golf while we were, while we were Facetiming. So was he like…or like maybe his caddy – you don’t have caddies in mini-golf, but maybe you do, maybe in the afterlife you just have a caddy like – like you know how Phil Rudd from AC/DC always had a spare snare – that’s a fun phrase to say, spare snare – but he always had a well here we go again – spare snare with his pack of smokes and a lighter on it sitting next to the snare he was using. I wanna say he had a beer on it too but that seems like it would spill real easy, ya know. And with that EasyBeats team producin’ them, they prolly would have none of that. But maybe Ian Curtis’ caddy is like that and he just had his laptop open so he could get his however many holes in while we were talkin’. We still haven’t really solved that old how many holes does Kabbalistic golf have conundrum? Well I guess we should clarify too that it’s Kabbalistic golf in the afterlife cause it might be different up there but then again isn’t that world a reflection of our own? But it could be distorted you know. Do they even call them holes? Ya know like that Mercury Rev song, and then you got Mercury governing the Sephiroth of Hod which sounds like hole so maybe there ya go…”
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In which Young Southpaw proposes a séance to get to the bottom of who in fact John Lennon thought was the best drummer in The Beatles, what we might find out about Live Aid in the process, and are people who wear a number other than two shoes really badasses?
Taking in Lenin, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, David Bowie, The Beat, symbols, Russian letters, Jabba The Hut, Elton John, Phil Collins, Adam Ant, the astral plane, etc.
“You know that John Lennon quote about Ringo, ya know? When Lennon was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world or something, and Lennon’s reply was ‘he’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles’ BUT I MEAN WHO WAS?! Ya know? I realize it was intended as, as a humorous statement, but it does raise the question – who was the best drummer in The Beatles? And I guess we’ll never know. We’ll certainly never know who John Lennon thought, unless of course he confided it to someone, well WILL THAT PERSON PLEASE COME FORWARD?! I tell ya, if he did tell somebody who he thought was, well, that person is a master at keeping secrets, someone I would very much like to have as my friend. Though that would complicate things because I would know that he had this information that I sought, and he…or she…would be aware that I desperately wanted this information, and not just me, I imagine the whole world at large would like to know too, ya know. And that would make things uncomfortable for the secret bearer, so that we could never truly be great friends, ya know. No matter how well we got along. Or even if like we perfected like some sort of unstoppable give-and-go basketball play that only we could perform, and like all the major teams were trying to sign us, new leagues sprouting up all over the world in the hopes that we’d be on their starting five but eventually I imagine this rift, this being unable to reveal all our deepest darkest knowledge to one another, would crumble even that. A shame really…
I mean I guess we could have a séance. That might even be the purpose of seances, the real deal, ya know find out, find out the facts, ya know. All the ancient mysteries of the universe that the dead are now privy to – like who did John Lennon think was the best drummer in The Beatles. Hmm, I was gonna say could it have been Stuart Sutcliffe, you know, you gotta lock the bass in with the drums? But he wasn’t in The Beatles when John Lennon made that statement, and he didn’t say ‘who’s ever been in The Beatles’ cause I mean that would have been like really unkind. You’d have all these people, ya know like opium addicts who are trying to set records for crashing hot air balloons, and like pyromaniac hairdressers who now operate in more metaphysical spaces ya know once they’d read Barbarella, all them start claiming they had been in The Beatles for like a day and that song Yesterday was actually about that 24 hour period and they’ve got the minidiscs to prove it. But no one knew what minidiscs were back then…
But I mean what else would I like to know from John Lennon if we were to do this thang? Well like, what did he think of Live Aid, ya know as a spectral being? That would certainly be interesting, I mean what would he have thought of it, 1985, what did he think of David Lee Roth leavin’ Van Halen?! Was it too soon for somethin’ like Live Aid after that catastrophe? Y’all, y’all with me on this? I mean, well what about Lenin? The other one ya know, ol’ Vladdy Ilyich. Do they like hang out all the time together? The other souls gettin’ them all confused, especially with that Back In The USSR song – yes I know McCartney wrote that one but McCartney never found himself in circumstances like these, ya know! And then there’s Working Class Heroes too, if you’re gonna be pedantic about it.
Or is there like a language barrier, like they wanna hang out but all the interpreters are busy trying to interpret just what is going on in the afterlife and are unavailable for mere communicatory purposes. I mean I would assume that everyone there has some sorta like ghostly babelfish allowing them to understand everything, but that might be a dangerous assumption. I mean imagine if during the séance I ask Lennon about Lenin, the one with two n’s and not three, the Russian guy, probably easier to say it that way, and the sadness of him saying that the language barrier is too great is just too much for any of us, including the medium, to bear. You need to plan these things ahead of time…
And I was talking about the Russian Ramones earlier, what about the Russian Beatles, what would they be called? Cause you know they got that rad letter the zheh, they call it the zhaba, I’m assuming that’s where Jabba The Hut comes from, look at all these assumptions today like I’m some sorta hep cat with nine lives and nothing to fear. But it could just be a strange coincidence, but I mean the letter looks like a frog which is why they call it that, and that’s what zhaba means in Russian. But it could also look like a beetle! It’s just a line drawing, a two-dimensional representation of a sound, ya know, but oh man – don’t frogs eat beetles? That’s scary as hell! This thing represents itself and the animal it feeds on. But maybe Lennon and Lenin have a band together that is just this almighty symbol. And Prince is there too. They tour together and it’s, it’s just symbols ya know! WOAH! Maybe it’s conceptual and they’re all just playin’ cymbals… Like the percussion, oh man… Would that then prove that John Lennon himself was the best drummer in The Beatles? Maybe he was referring to himself, the intrigue deepens, man. And ya know, what did he think of David Bowie & Bing Crosby’s version of The Little Drummer Boy? He musta talked about that with Bowie, well maybe, I’m not taking a hat trick of assumptions here, I’m not even wearing a hat! But I mean speakin’ of hats, he and Bowie wrote Fashion together, around the time of Young Americans. Despite neither of them being young Americans. Though they’re both in the B section at record stores. Not the same thing I know but it’s somethin’. And ya know, just to clarify, B as in the letter, not the insect. Though that’d be cool if they kept live bees at record stores. Near the ABBA and Jesus & Mary Chain singles. Walkin’ out with some new cds and a fresh batch of honey, sounds amazin’. Personally I’ve always wanted to name a band Elton John & The Beetles, spelt with two E’s of course so you don’t get sued. I just think that’s a great band name, you know like all those punk bands, the ones who did fight on Saturday nights – not that I’m condoning violence, even for the bees with their stingers ya know – but the Beetles, there’s that English band The Beat too. Their gigs on the Lower East Side, I wonder if that ever confused anybody with the whole LES abbreviation. Fans showin’ up, traveling thousands of miles to see what this Beatles reunion at a club in New York City is all about, and then The Beat, unaware of any possible misunderstanding, still for some reason chose to – for the first time ever – do a set of all Beatles covers? And maybe they do it like playin behind a screen like that PiL riot show, so that everyone leaves still havin’ no idea of what actually went on. Now I’m all confused myself, did this ever actually happen?
And ya know John Lennon imagine there’s no heaven or hell, well a séance would have to include some hard-hitting questions about that. In fact it would kind of back him into a corner…
And come to think of it, what did the whole spectral world think of Live Aid, ya know? And like what happened in the astral plane, you know, when David Lee Roth left Van Halen?! I mean that must have been insane. Atomic Punk, can barely begin to describe what was happenin’ there… Wow….wow…….wow……. I mean did like the whole spectral world like boycott Live Aid because of the name? Hmmm….Undead Aid…was that what wasgoin’ on? Did they have like their own superstar line-up that like far outdid Madonna ya know swearin’ and like throwin’ her shoe or whatever she did ya know? Aw, that woulda been hilarious if like Undead Aid happened the very next day and was just a parody of the whole Live Aid thing. Ya had like millions of undead souls just pretendin’ to be Phil Collins, teleporting from one place to another instead of flyin’ the Concord ya know. And people formed bands called The Shoes as like a dig at Madonna’s whole thang. That woulda been amazin’. Did Adam Ant play Live Aid, ya know Goody Two-Shoes? And what about Goody Two-Shoes? Does that phrase imply that like, the most badasses are like…people who only wear one shoe? OR MORE THAN A PAIR?! I mean that would be insane, you know. How do you wear more than two shoes?! That just seems complicated and uncomfortable. Then again, phrases like Goody Two-Shoes don’t come up for no reason. But everyone’s wearing two sh-, well no, it would be more correct to say everyone who is wearing shoes…is most likely wearing two shoes… Unless they’re in the act of putting one on, or taking one off, can’t rule that out. This whole phrase is a minefield. But I could always ask John Lennon about this at the séance”
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