‘The Sporting Life’ by Diamanda Galás and John Paul Jones

 Girl Power Week is coming to a close. It’s been fun. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried and we’ve longed for the long of these wonderful rock’n’roll women. So to close it out today I thought I’d test your limits for extreme music with Diamanda Galás, an avante-garde keyboardist, composer and singer. I’m gonna warn you now. The chances you will dig this are slim, but that’s ok as long as you give it a try first. Time to expand your horizons.

 Diamanda Galás was born in San Diego, California in 1955. From a very early age she mastered the piano. By 24 she was the lead in ‘Un Jour comme un autre’, a French opera based on the alleged arrest and torture of a Turkish woman accused of treason. What makes Diamanda stand out as an artist is not only her abilities on piano and with arranging, but her three and a half octave, bone chilling voice. In the 80’s, Diamanda made a trilogy of operas collectively titled ‘Masque of the Red Death’ about the world AIDS crisis. It is probably, and I mean this in a very good way, one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard. It sends chills up my spine and down every other part of my body.

 With this album, ‘The Sporting Life’, long time admirer John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame joined up with Diamanda. This is easily her most accesible album. It’s almost weirder to hear her with this type of music than as the an opera singer. It’s a lot ike those ‘Punk Sings Disco’ albums you see everywhere except it’s ‘Avante-Garde Goes Cajun’. This album goes all over the map of musical styles. Strangely it somehow works. 

 So if you don’t like avante-garde operas about AIDS that’s fine. Diamanda Galás definitely isn’t everyones cup of tea but you don’t know until you listen. And hey, John Paul Jones likes her. That’s good enough for me to give her a shot.

Song: ‘Devil’s Rodeo’

‘Live Through This’ by Hole

  This is the review that gets me in trouble. I’m gonna say it right out. I like Hole. So if you’ve got some vendetta against Courtney Love that doesn’t allow you to like good music out of some sense of loyalty to her late husband, stop reading. They gone? Ok now that all the rational people are left let’s move on.

 Hole was formed in late 1989 by the only two consistant members, Eric Erlandson and Courtney Love. After their first album, ‘Pretty on the Inside’, which was more of a noisy punk record, Hole released ‘Live Through This’, a pop/grunge LP that is more accessible on the surface. Bubbling beneath however is one of the most rattling things I can think of, Courtney Love’s voice. Say what you will about her but the girl can rock the fuck out. That voice could peel paint and I love it. I may not like her as a human but I can’t help liking her music.

 As for the rest of the album, it’s catchy but raw. It’s the equivalent of giving someone a hug before telling them to fuck off. Some parts are fun and infectious to the point you can almost dance to them, while others are just a sneering spit in the face. It’s a great balance and a great sound. No wonder it sold so many copies. Even in such a sad time, only a few days after Kurt was found. Some people even think he wrote most of the album, but I’ll leave the conspiracies to Wikipedia and YouTube commenters.  

 In conclusion, if you can ignore the Cobain uber-fanboys long enough to listen to some Hole, you might enjoy it. It’s a prettied up fuck you to everyone. It’s just good punk rock. 

Song: ‘Gutless’

‘This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and so is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That’ by Marnie Stern 

 What can I really say about Marnie Stern? Rarely in the history of music has something been so explosively out of left field. Marnie makes such insane, complex music I could probably be convinced she is an alien and has come to whip humanity into a hypnotic state. I think I’m ok with that.

 Marnie actually comes from New York City where she garnered a taste for bands like Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof and Hella. The best way I can use to describe Marnie’s guitar playing is with an equation that goes something like, Best Parts of Van Halen+The London Symphony+Glenn Branca+A Good Dose of Speed. Something along those lines. The point is, she will melt your face. Period. 

 Now with a talent like Marnie Stern it’s hard to make a band. It’s nearly impossible to find people to keep up. Lucky for us there is enough talent out there to not only keep up but further great talents like Marnie. I am speaking in particular of drummer Zach Hill of Hella. I can’t think of anyone else who could compliment the nerve shattering guitar tapping Marnie lays down. The end result is a sensation that equals your finger in an electrical socket, but in a great way. Marnie Stern is definitely not something you listen to after a long day and are looking to wind down. It’s more the kind of album you put on to stay awake after days of sleeplessness or on a long road trip when you need to keep your eyes wide to make it to the next stop. It’s pure tapping insanity.

 All that being said, this is not an album you want to miss. Even if hyper guitar punk rock doesn’t sound like your thing, you’ve at least got listen in awe to the precision and speed. If this were a Guitar Hero song the controllers would explode. Just get a bucket first so you have something to catch your melted face in.

Song: ‘The Package is Wrapped’

‘Nice Ass’ by Free Kitten

 For todays installment in Girl Power Week we are gonna look at another “super group’, Free Kitten. Formed in 1992 as a collaboration between Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Pussy Galore’s Julie Cafritz, two of the most amazing women in punk rock, the group was joined by Yoshimi P-We of the Boredoms on drums and Pavement bassist Mark Ibold. Notice in the line up the balance of members from more traditional punk/indie bands and members of noise/hardcore bands. This perfect mix really shows up in their music. The songs are always on the border of descending into absolute chaos held together only by a solid bass line and a vocal melody. Meanwhile, the guitar is delightfully overdriven and the drums are a punk rock versions of Captain Beefheart rhythms. This band is just the right mixture of punk rock elements.

 I think my favorite element of ‘Nice Ass’ is the subject matter of most the songs, the problems you face while being in the music industry. Basically, the members started a group to complain about the pitfalls of touring and the stupidity of the process. The whole album is a sneering look at the way things work and no one could vocalize that better than Kim Gordon, one of my favorite female voices in music. When this album was released in 1995, it seemed this is the way things would always work in the music world but we know better now, don’t we?

 In the end I’m sure people will chalk Free Kitten up as just another punk band but they are more than that. They’re a punk band with a hook both musically and ideologically. Nothing is more punk than railing against the system you’re apart of. Plus it’s just perfectly loud, chaotic music. What’s not to love?

Song: ‘Call Back’

‘Horehound’ by The Dead Weather

 There is no doubt that you have heard about this band. This “super group” consist of Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) on guitar, Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs) on drums and the girl of the group, The singer from The Kills, Alison Mosshart. We have a track here from their first album ‘Horehound’, a dirty, modern electric blues joyride on wax.

 This band formed after Jack White blew out his voice on tour with The Raconteurs that The Kills just happen to be the opening band for. This lead to the members meeting to jam at Jack’s Third Man Studios to just jam. About two weeks later they had made this album and set out on tour. The album has dirty synths and muddy guitars (which we all know how much I love muddy guitar) and tons of low end. White plays drums like he has never played anything else. Now, what’s most interesting about The Dead Weather to me is their live performance. 

 Without sounding too insulting to all the members, the most famous name in the group is Jack White. I’m sure tons of White Stripes fanatics went to see The Dead Weather preform just to see Jack. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of just that. I went to see them their first time in Michigan at The Fillmore just because Jack’s name was attached. I’m a fan boy, sue me. Anyway the fact was after about two songs, I forgot Jack was there. Alison completely steals the show. It wasn’t until Jack came upfront to play alittle guitar that I remembered he was in this band. It’s not that he’s a bad drummer by any means. I’m pretty sure whatever he touches, he masters. It was just the way Alison commanded the audience, you couldn’t look away. She displays her sexuality in such a way that leaves the average man drooling. She goes up on stage and without taking off any cloths or dressing slutty, makes you sweat. Unlike most female pop stars who play the role of girl looking for someone to do what they will with her, Alison carries herself onstage in a way that says ‘I’m in control. You want me. I am powerful, sexy and untouchable.’. A very dangerous thing.

 By the end of the show, the whole band had completely destroyed any mind in the place. The very next day I picked up the record, which again is another album meant for vinyl, and I could almost hear the Delta traced throughout time from Robert Johnson to this record. It’s the blues for a new generation and this time, it’s loud and female.

Song: ‘New Pony (Bob Dylan Cover)’

‘Pearl’ by Janis Joplin and The Full Tilt Boogie Band

 Today for Girl Power Week we are jumping back in time. Way back when hippies were more than the smoke weed, drop acid, love everyone, no job, listen to ‘Dark Side of the Moon‘ two dimensional joke they are today, 1970. While the vast majority of the musical world at the time was long haired, dirty dudes trying to stop a war, there was someone there who just wanted to sing the blues. I’m preaching about the one, the only, the radiant, Miss Janis Lyn Joplin. 

 Janis didn’t have to say anything about the Vietnam war, although she often did, to be standing in protest. She was a woman in pop music who dressed outrageously, spoke her mine and did what she wanted. She drank, swore and lived in excess. Like Bikini Kill show girls they could be in a punk rock band, Janis showed women they didn’t have to be housewives. They could be a bit wild and live freely. Janis went up on stage and sang the blue to people telling them in her own way that she was proud to be a strong woman and would only settle for a strong man that treated her right. I gotta tell you, if I was around then I would have volunteered.

 This album, ‘Pearl’, was her first with The Full Tilt Boogie Band and unfortunately her last. During the time they were recording this album she died of a heroin overdose before it was completed. In fact, the track ‘Buried Alive in the Blues’ is only instrumental because of her untimely death. This is Janis at the peak of her fame. Throughout the album is a sense of comfort and a laid back, natural attitude that even goes so far as light hearted tracks like ‘Mercedes Benz’. Of corse that doesn’t stop Janis and the band from getting down to business. As with anything Janis did, it was passionate. This woman sang her soul out on every track. Every word was belted out with all the emotion she had to try and somehow let you feel everything she feels and she does it better than anyone. She was a true blues singer.

 After her death, Janis was one of the four inductees from the 60’s counterculture, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones being the other three, to join the 27 Club with Robert Johnson, making it a real club. The hippie culture would go the way of every other movement in America and be commercialized and fade away. Many would come after Janis, some good and some bad but none of them would ever make the same impression on rock’n’roll.

Song: ‘Get It While You Can’