Woah, I haven't posted since February? Again, too long since I've updated. Well, at least I'm a little better than Jemina Pearl of Be Your Own Pet! 

(Ha! Just kidding! No, really! Um... hey, that looks heavy, what are you...  Noooo! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!)

But I've been crazy busy and there isn't much to say. I'll be free of school in December, and I can't wait. When I'm employed again I'm going to start filling a long, long wish list from Amazon.com. Red Aunts, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Rise Against, Reagan Youth, Rocket from the Crypt, The New Bomb Turks, X-ray Specs, help I can't stop typing names of great bands!

I haven't done much with the station, partly because I'm studying over there and can't be bothered to walk all the way across the room to give a massive thumbs down to some weak-ass alternative song that Pandora slipped in. That and I may be getting soft again; letting some so-called 'pop-punk' slide in if I can't decide how much I like it. I did add the God-Awfuls, The Gits, The Hudson Falcons, 7 Year Bitch, The Oppressed, Leatherface, the Viscious, Spiveys, Cold Cold Hearts, Kleveland (WOW! Great band!), the Excessories, the Eyeliners, the Go-Sheilas, Rotten Apples, the SubHumans, and one of my new favorites, the U.S. Bombs.

The Subhumans are one of those "how could I forget about them?" bands that I didn't remember form the old days. The U.S. Bombs are a good 'punk revivalist band' - which apparently means they don't care to blend their punk rock. Check out the song "Destroy the Nation". The themes of Kleveland songs - and Stephanie Smith's accusing tones - make them a Riot Grrl band in my book. The world needs more Riot Grrl. And spankings.

It irritates me that I can look up at the list of bands that I've added, and wonder if Pandora has been playing them for me. Its possible that I added a few of the bands because I heard a single 'marquee' song that Pandora digs out occasionally. I usually seed the group because I want to hear more. Pandora may not necessarily oblige.

I've just realized (through Pandora) that the Adicts (first wave British punk) released 'Life Goes On' in 2009. I listened to samples from the album, but I didn't hear anything that excited me. Maybe it needs to grow on me? Does that make me a bad punk? 

Edit: insert a parenthetical question mark after 'first wave,' I'm not entirely clear when they got their start. Kubrik immortalized the 'Droog' very early on in his 'A Clockwork Orange'. Can't beat that with a sharp stick in the eye.

I think Pandora wants my lunch money...

Its been a long time between updates, and I've been quite busy both with school and tweaking the radio station. I don't know for sure whether it is Pandora or my own pics, but I still keep hearing music that doesn't belong here. I just now gave thumbs down to Audioslave, Slade, and Primus. How the hell did they get picked for my station?? The only band I see that is a big wild card is "Television". I added them because they were an influence on of early punk. I haven't heard more than one of their songs in about a month, so I'm afraid that they are the reason Pandora keeps flinging Indie rock bands at me.

So I'm going to have to review my artist seeds yet again. I finally cut the Buzzcocks - though I really hated to do it. Not more than 2 songs later, Pandora plays "Just Lust" by the Buzzcocks. I could interpret that in a number of ways. 1) It was already in the queue and thus has no real meaning. 2) Pandora thinks that the Buzzcocks are a good fit with the remaining artists that I have seeded - which justifies my original decision to seed them. 3) Its a big "FUCK YOU" from Pandora. Since Pandora skipped playing "Sex Object" by Manda and the Marbles - a song that I really like - completely on its own, I'm leaning towards interpretation number 3.

I beleive that I solved what I refer to as the "Hardcore Issue." I took Agnostic Front out of the list of artist seeds. I didn't want to do that either, but the diversity was getting much too broad. There are still seeded punk artists that lean towards hardcore (as I define it), so hopefully I'm not actually sacrificing any punk/hardcore hybrids. Perhaps I should re-seed Clit 45 just to make sure?

Slade, Primus, and Audioslave. I still can't believe it. At least I heard Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" today. That tells me I'm doing something right. Rock on.

What "Alternative" Music Is

Go click on the title. You'll like it. Be nice and browse more of Gunshow Comics.

Do you know why truth is stranger than fiction? Do you? Reality is weird enough, but fiction is a human convenience. Its a book or television show that you soak in for entertainment. If something happens in the story that you find farfetched (think Agatha Christie's detective stories etc. where a miracle happens leading to a sudden 'blue sky' conclusion when everything was baffling right up to that point) the knee-jerk reaction is WTF sort of contrived story is this? Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense - or it doesn't sell well.

Pandora positively mystifies me. I've been working on this radio station for 6 months, and just yesterday it played L7 for the first time. Argh! I couldn't make that up if I wanted to. I've seen referneces to the band for months, but generally don't add groups that I haven't heard. I cannot claim to be perfect either. I have not thumbed-up or seeded the UK Subversives. D'oh! I'm not really trying to seed *every* good band, I have been trying to seed core groups to let Pandora fill in around them. Also I like a little time to agonize about whether to seed them or not. Another realization that I have had is that if I am to allow 'primitive' rock bands, then I should un-thumbs-down T-Rex and the Troggs. Naturally this will lead me to another Hardcore problem - Pandora will start cramming in primitive rock bands, and I'll have to issue an assload of thumbs downs. Not to worry, my guiding star here is the overall mix, so just like Hardcore I'll allow a good sampling without going overboard. Maybe.

New additions; the Partisans, UK Subversives, the Sainte Catherines, Authority Zero, the Lurkers, L7 and the Shocker (former L7 bassist). Also added Venom Lords, a band name that puzzled me 25 years ago. I was into Chicago's Naked Raygun, and Venom Lords used a similar font and colors for their band name on their album covers. So a casual glance might confuse one for the other. With record prices what they were, I wasn't in a hurry to buy records of bands that I've never heard of. Radio ignored these bands, Pandora does not. Now I dig Venom Lords. Does that mean I've come full circle?

Thought my few readers might like this; a search for punk rock on Amazon.com

Evolution

In Nature, Evolution occurs as tiny changes that accumulate over great periods of time. Such changes seldom affect only a single charactersitic of any species. Various traits of many species will be affected, and populations in different geographic locations will be affected differently. Language also evolves, but follows additional patterns, including word borrowing (inter-breeding?) from neighboring languages. This becomes self-evident from only a cursory survey of dialects, accents, slangs, and jargon within a single language.

Music evolves faster than any other cultural hallmark that I am aware of. This happens for a large number of reasons; large differences of musical vision, the free global exchange of ideas (no borders), rampant (and shameless) borrowing, culture clash, culture shock, commercialization....
If I were to forget what I was writing about, I might think I was writing a list of band names. My point is that it is extremely difficult to point out all the inspirations and forebears of Punk Rock, and dutifully honor all of them. Similarly, its impossible to track everything that was influenced by it. Musical genre names become more and more meaningless to me, especially with respect to Punk. I understand what "punk revivalist" is, but I'm still not clear on what "post-punk" is. Even more difficult for me is being open-minded about potential bands to keep as "proto-punk" groups.

If you happened to select Pandora's generic punk station, I can tell you exactly what you're listening to. The Ramones, the Clash, Iggy Pop, the Clash,  the Buzzcocks, the Clash, the Damned,  the Jam, Rancid, Fugazi, and a little from the Clash. The Jam??? It still mystifies me that anyone thinks that the Jam is a Punk Rock band. I suppose the same could be said of the Buzzcocks. Personally, I have to lump the Clash in the same category. They were a major reason that I started this station from scratch, I just could not control the airplay. "The Clash are Punk!" argues my buddy Jim. I think that London Calling was an important album for Punk Rock. What bugs me is that for every song like "Death or Glory" or "Brand New Cadillac", theres a song like "Lost in the Supermarket" or "Ghetto Defendant" - and Pandora doesn't do much to distinguish one from the other for seeded artists. Very anti-climactic. I'll give 'Brand New Cadillac' a *trial* thumbs up and see what happens.

Thats how I'm treating the Detroit Cobras right now. Its not hard to map their sound as pre-Punk, despite their playing all covers of previously recorded primitive rock and roll hits. I'm actually pretty happy with how they fit in, expect them to be seeded soon. Fake Fictions, Magenta Lane, and Manda and the Marbles are other bands that will probably be seeded in the near future.

I've recently realised that Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' was released in 1971. Holy Cow! The Stooges' first release was in 1969 (and to be fair, Led Zeppelin issued I and II the same year). It floors my modern perspective to realize that anyone was grindingly heavy like Sabbath that early. I like Black Sabbath, and I can hardly say they had NO impact on Punk, so I'll not give them a thumbs down if Pandora plays them. Pandora has played Black Sabbath and Motorhead on rare occasions, I'm just uncertain how much I want to encourage their appearance on the playlist. I definitely want to see more Motorhead.

I'm still agonizing about hardcore bands. I worry a little that I'm giving short shrift to some important bands. I'm sure there hardcore stations out there, so I'm not consigning anyone to oblivion. At the same time I know that the world of Hardcore Punk is very much greater than just Agnostic Front, the Cro-Mags and GBH. I worry about balance *way* too much, huh?

Added 4 Skins, the Adicts, City Mouse, Clit 45, Crass, Conflict, the Dicks, the Diodes, the Messengers, Television, Virus, and I think I forgot to mention the addition of X-Ray Spex previously. Some of these were thumbed up before and are graduating to being seeded. Clit 45, 4 Skins, Conflict and the Diodes are getting seeded so I can try to get Pandora to play more than one song. Call it probation, but I havent heard enough of their stuff yet to make a sound decision.

I thumbed-down a Pennywise song. I really do like them. They have one hit song thats tantamount to a cover of Bad Religion's ...  crap, I forget the song now, but "the anchorman can't stop lying" is a musical and lyrical lift of "and the lamppost can't stop crying"... but I'll chalk that up to flattery. (By the way, Bad Religion FUCKING rules and they get less play than Stiff Little Fingers - something very wrong with that) Uh. Anyway, I like Pennywise but I don't want Pandora leaning so heavily in their direction.

Edging my Punk garden

Last time I said that I 'cut out' a number of Proto-Punk bands. What I did was remove them from the list of 'Seeded Artists'. A number of them are still being played occasionally. Most of them, actually. They are being played much less often, which is more in keeping with what I really wanted. Its just difficult to finely tune Pandora in matters like this.

At some point in time I removed Social Distortion. I wasn't happy about pulling them, but they were causing Pandora to pitch me some seriously not-Punk bands. I suggested to Pandora that they add a tool like: Play This Artist, But Do Not Play Others Like This. Even knowing what artist seeds caused Pandora to pick additional artists would be a great help. I'd like to bring Social Distortion back, but not for a while yet. I'm still pruning back some hardcore. Seeding Agnostic Front turned out to be dangerous from a Pandora perspective - the band has a large body of recordings and thus an enlarged influence on Pandora.

Added Be Your Own Pet, Betty Blowtorch, the Gossip, Vice Squad, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Be Your Own Pet and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are actually "on the fence". The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have some really Punk songs - and a number of songs that simply do not belong here. I've opted to actively manage that by thumbing down every song that I disapprove of. Thats more work, but the resultant mix is worth the effort.

Also added Television. I may give them the same harsh treatment as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but Television was one of Punk's cornerstone bands. They belong here more than others.

I mentioned waaaaaaaaaaaay down there that I gave a thumbs up to TOOL. I removed that thumb, leaving them neutral and will give thumbs down if Pandora adds it to the mix. I'm a great fan of TOOL, but they are an oddball from the standpoint of music genres. Keeping them would seriously screw up the mix.

I'm no longer going to list the individual groups that get a thumbs down. There are too many of them, and they often don't seem to be related to anything that I'm playing. The exeption will be to seeded artists that I give thumbs down to, and other bands that are played quite often that need controlling. Listening to such a one right now; Fugazi. Too much airtime. I havent decided which song to harsh on, but it will probably be one of the Minor Threat songs...  no, that sends the wrong message. Guess I'll have to pick something from Repeater. I'm concerned about Rancid's airplay as well, but I want to be very careful with them.