Avengers -- "The American In Me" (1979)

Ask not what you can do for your country

What's your country been doing to you?

Most of you are no doubt familiar with the line from John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech:  "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country."

The lines from today’s featured song that are quoted above turn that quote on its head.

Kennedy's assassination was obviously the inspiration for the first two lines of this song, which pull no punches:

It's the American in me that makes me

Watch the blood

Running out of the bullet hole

In his head

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This post is the last in my series of posts about songs I heard on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” program 30 years ago.  

The Avengers

That's because “The American In Me” is the ne plus ultra song of that era – trying to top it would be like Chuck Berry trying to top his opening act, Jerry Lee Lewis after Lewis ended his act by setting his piano on fire.  

Some of the other “Mystic Eyes” songs I've written about are somewhat frivolous.  But there’s nothing light-hearted or tongue-in-cheek here.  The Avengers were not f*cking around.  

There’s another reason to make this the final “Mystic Eyes” post.  I stopped listening to (and recording) that program when I moved to San Francisco in November 1980.  In San Francisco, I started listening to (and recording) a Pacifica radio program that featured hardcore punk bands.  (I plan to do a series of posts on the very obscure music played on the Pacifica program some day.) 

One of the hosts of the Pacifica program was Jello Biafra, the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys and arguably American hardcore punk’s biggest name.  (According to his Wikipedia entry, Jello Biafra – whose real name was Eric Boucher – attended UC-Santa Cruz, where he “studied acting and the history of Paraguay.”)

Many of the bands featured on that program played at the Mabuhay Gardens, a Filipino restaurant and nightclub on North Beach that became the center of San Francisco's hardcore scene – sort of a West Coast equivalent of CBGB.  Among the regulars at “The Fab Mab” was the Avengers.

So this song bridges my “Mystic Eyes” era and my San Francisco sojourn.  

Before we get back to the Avengers, click here to watch a video of the Dead Kennedys' biggest hit, “Holiday in Cambodia” – accompanied by footage from the movie Apocalypse Now.

(Two sticks of dynamite in one post?  That’s the way we roll at 2 or 3 lines.)

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The Avengers were formed in 1977.  On the strength of a 3-song EP and their Mabuhay Gardens appearances, they were chosen to open for the Sex Pistols’ final show at Bill Graham’s Winterland Ballroom.  Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols then produced the band's eponymous (there’s that word again!) EP, which included “The American In Me.”

A couple of the band's original members (including singer Penelope Houston) re-formed the band after the release of a compilation CD in 1999.  In 2006, they performed “The American In Me” with Pearl Jam at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.  

Click here to read a 2005 interview with Penelope Houston that discusses the history of the band.

"The American In Me" is a startling song – a real kick in the *ss for anyone who lived through the Kennedy assassination.  It is anti-government from a leftist conspiracy-theory sort of viewpoint (another of its lines is “Kennedy was murdered by the FBI!”), as opposed to being anti-government from a right-wing Tea Party perspective.

Punk/rock music should be anti-government, of course . . . also anti-parent and anti-teacher.   

Without further ado, click here to listen to the Avengers doing “The American In Me.”

If you want to buy this song from Amazon, just click on the link below:

Holly and the Italians -- "Youth Coup" (1981)

I'm bored with everything that I see

I'm bored with you and you with me

(More bored with you than with me, of course.)

Even though I'm almost 58 years old, rock music is still VERY important to me.  But I wonder about  bands that are still touring when their members are my age or older.

In "My Generation," the Who famously sang "Hope I die before I get old.”  But they didn't.  (Except for Keith Moon, of course, whose drumming on "I Can See For Miles" is without a doubt the greatest performance by a rock drummer ever.)  I could have done without their performance at the 2010 Super Bowl – when Townshend and Daltrey were 64 and 65, respectively. 

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Ideally, rock music performers are not only young but also have a rock-and-roll attitude – that is, pissed off at their parents and teachers and adults in general.  

"Youth Coup" is hardly "My Generation" circa 1981.  But Holly Vincent of Holly and the Italians did have the right attitude.  

This short-lived band is better known for "Tell That Girl to Shut Up," the single that led to their getting an album deal.  But "Youth Coup" is a great little rock anthem.  And like the songs discussed in my last few posts, I discovered it thanks to the "Mystic Eye" radio show.

Click here to listen to "Youth Coup.”

Urban Verbs -- "Next Question" (1980)

I'm faced with the next question

Is this love or just a feeling?

For some reason, I always associate the Urban Verbs – yet another band whose music I first heard on the "Mystic Eyes" radio program in 1980 – with the Talking Heads.  I'm not sure why, except for the fact that the Taking Heads' drummer, Chris Frantz, was the brother of the Urban Verbs' lead singer, Roddy Frantz. 

Both were beloved by the critics, but the bands really couldn't have been more different in attitude.  The Urban Verbs were unhappy, full of angst – some might say they were whiny and their music was depressing – while the Talking Heads were quirky and offbeat and funny, and usually had their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks.

The Urban Verbs didn't last long.  Their eponymous debut album was released in 1980:

It contained a heapin' helpin' of Debbie Downer-ish tracks, including "The Angry Young Men" ("Oh no, the end is at hand"), "Subways" ("Down here I don't have to say anything/I just sit and look out the window"), "Tina Grey" ("Tina's put her fist through the glass" because "she doesn't want a baby"), and "The Good Life" ("I wouldn't take a piss on your good life").

They put out a second LP the next year, and then broke up in 1982.  Sic transit gloria.

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"Next Question" is my favorite Urban Verbs song.  The singer is willing to assume, arguendo, that he’s in love, but he’s not sure how being in love will change things:  

If this is love, how will it change us?

Make us move just a little bit closer?

Or will you call me every evening? 

This song reminds me of something A. J. Byatt wrote about modern young intellectuals in her novel, Possession:  

They were children of a time and culture that mistrusted love, "in love," romantic love, romance in toto, and which nevertheless in revenge proliferated sexual language, linguistic sexuality, analysis, dissection, deconstruction, exposure.

In Elvis Costello's "Mystery Dance," the singer is the male half of a young and very inexperienced couple:

I remember when the lights went out

And I was tryin' to make it look like

It was never in doubt

She thought that I knew

And I thought that she knew

So both of us were willing

But we didn't know how to do it

Byatt's overeducated post-docs have just the opposite problem.  They know exactly how to do it,  but aren't quite sure if they want to do it.  

Maybe they would prefer to just talk about doing it, or – better yet – write an article for a scholarly journal exploring the biological, psychological, sociological, anthropological, philosophical, or literary implications of doing it.

The narrator of "Next Question" is like Byatt's characters – he talks too much and thinks too much.  He's trying to write a script for his life rather than just letting it happen.  You really want to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shake – maybe slap him and yell at him to GET HIS SH*T TOGETHER!

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Click here to listen to "Next Question."

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Squeeze -- "If I Didn't Love You" (1980)

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I didn't love you, I 'd hate you

Squeeze is yet another band I first heard on the "Mystic Eyes" program, although they became popular enough that I also heard their music elsewhere as well.  

This song is from their third LP, Argybargy, which is a new wave masterpiece -- it has a number of very strong and very memorable tracks, and it's essentially impossible not to sing along when you listen to them.  (I was singing along to this one today while on a bike ride, and got a number of admiring looks from the walkers and joggers that I passed while singing at the top of my lungs.)

I have to disagree with Squeeze when it comes to love and hate -- love and hate aren't always mutually exclusive, either-or emotions.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel wasn't talking about romantic love when he said "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," but I think that principle applies to romantic love.  

The French writer, Marcel Jouhandeau expressed a similar sentiment: "To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn."  (Jouhandeau also said "The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock," which may be as good as any explanation why love and hate can go together.)

Love most often turns to hate when it is not reciprocated, or when the beloved is guilty of deception or betrayal.  Perhaps Squeeze should have said Because you don't love me, I hate you, or Even though I love you, I hate you.

Click here to listen to "If I Didn't Love You."

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Gruppo Sportivo -- "Hey Girl" (1979)

She said "Your nose is running, honey"

I said "Sorry, but it's not"

(Think about it.)

Gruppo Sportivo is a Dutch group with an Italian name (which the band saw on a poster and liked – it means "sports team") that sang in French and English (sort of).  They are another one of the great bands that I became acquainted with in 1980 thanks to the "Mystic Eye" radio show.

Gruppo Sportivo's song lyrics sound they are the result of a partnership between a literature professor and a really obnoxious, show-offy 6th-grade boy.  (I'm pretty sure the 6th-grader wrote the lines quoted above.)  

I'm a sucker for pop songs with goofy yet clever lyrics – Sparks, 10cc, etc. – especially if the band includes a Farfisa or Vox Continental organ:

Vox Continental organ

Gruppo Sportivo's first album – which was released in Europe in 1977 – was titled Ten Mistakes.  Their first American album – which was released in 1979 – was titled Mistakes, and most of its content came from Ten Mistakes.  

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The first song on Mistakes is "Mission à Paris," which the band's website describes as "a dime-store spy novel of stolen NATO plans and secret rendezvouses at the Eiffel Tower."  (Whoever wrote that line could use an ESOL class or two.)

Mission a Paris

Shoot down immediately

Oh oh so and so

Du Deuxieme Bureau

Who stole a NATO plan

For flying carpet men

A secret formula

Ca va et cetera

(The Deuxieme Bureau was the French military intelligence agency.)

Click here to listen to "Mission à Paris."

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The most outrageous song on the LP (and there was some very stiff competition for that title) was "P.S. 78," an infectious little ditty about a high-school French class:

We are American kids

Rich daddies and big t*ts

Vive la France, les Wallons

Le camembert, et le bonbons

(If you can't remember the difference between camembert and brie, this article will help.)

Click here to listen to "P. S. 78."

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Click here to listen to today's featured song, "Hey Girl."

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Tru Fax and the Insaniacs -- "Washingtron" (1980)

I used to work as a waitron

In the lounge of the Hiltron

Now I work for my Senatron 

And I live in Arlingtron

I've written elsewhere on this blog about "The Mystic Eye," an eccentric Saturday-night radio show on the old WHFS in Washington, DC – I taped about a hundred hours of this program in 1980, and still have those tapes. 

Recently, I discovered my handwritten lists of the songs on those tapes (or at least the songs that were identified on the tapes).  At least half of the music on those tapes – ranging from new wave to punk to power pop to truly bizarre novelty songs – is stuff I never heard anywhere else

For example, there was "My Girlfriend Is a Rock," by the Nervebreakers, a Texas garage band, which discusses the pros and cons of having a rock for a girlfriend:

You oughta see her in the swimming pool

She swims pretty good as a general rule

But she doesn't swim quite as good

As a girl made out of wood

Click here to listen to “My Girlfriend Is a Rock.”

Another record I heard on “The Mystic Eye” is "Fifi Goes Pop," a cautionary tale about a pet owner in a big hurry who puts his poodle in a microwave after bathing her.  (Obviously he had not read his owner's manual very carefully.)

Fifi goes pop

At setting number two

Cooked from the inside out

In a Fifi barbecue

Sucks to be Fifi, huh?

Click here to listen the original "Fifi" 45.  

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That brings us to Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, a Washington pop-punk band that made its first appearance at the legendary 9:30 Club (then located at 930 F St. NW in DC, only two blocks from my current office) in 1980, the year the club opened – and the same year I was sitting at home on Saturday nights, faithfully recording "The Mystic Eye.” 

"Washingtron" was the band's most popular song by far – they didn't record that much.  As someone who worked for the federal government back in those days, I can attest that it captured a certain aspect of the reality of life in Washington: for a lot of people, life in DC was a pretty mundane 9-to-5 kind of existence.

Tru Fax's lead singer, Diana Quinn, has a website with some information on the band's history if you're interested.  (By the way, I don't think "Tru Fax" has anything to do with facsimile machines – which were not widely used when the band got started in 1978.  Think "true facts" instead.)

The final concert at the original 9:30 Club took place on December 31, 1995.  The bands who performed at that show included not only Tru Fax but also several other "Mystic Eye" stalwarts – like the Insect Surfers, Urban Verbs, Slickee Boys, and Tiny Desk Unit.  Some of the performances from the club's last week have been released on two CDs titled 9:30 Live: A Time, A Place, A Scene.

Click here to hear a live performance of “Washington” from the 9:30 Live CD set.  (This recording doesn’t really do justice to Diana Quinn’s remarkably pure voice, but I couldn’t find the original studio recording of the song on YouTube.)

To buy "Washingtron" from Amazon, just click on the link below: