Real Life Rock (223 page)

2
Wisegirls
,
directed by David Anspaugh (Lions Gate)
Made in 2001, starring Mira Sorvino, Melora Waters, and Mariah Carey as waitresses in a Staten Island mob joint, this film went straight to video. Is that because Carey is faster, more obscene, and tougher than any woman in
The Sopranos
?

3
William Burroughs,
Junky: The 50th Anniversary Definitive Edition
(Penguin)
Modern pre-history from Burroughs in Mexico in about 1950, learning “the new hipster vocabulary” from “refugee” junkies: “ ‘Cool' [is] an all-purpose word indicating anything you like or any situation that is not hot with the law. Conversely, anything you don't like is ‘uncool.' From listening to these characters I got a picture of the situation in the U.S. A state of complete chaos where you never know who is who or where you stand.”

4
Alan Garthright, “No-Fly List Ensnares Innocent Travelers”
(
San Francisco Chronicle
,
June 8)
“In their efforts to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11 tragedy, the U.S. government and the airline industry are relying on software so outdated it can't distinguish between the last name of Osama bin Laden and punk rocker Johnny Rotten Lydon. . . . Many airlines rely on name-searching software derived from ‘Soundex,' a 120-year-old indexing system first used in the 1880 census. It was designed to help census clerks quickly index and retrieve sound-alike surnames with different spellings—like ‘Rogers' and ‘Rodgers' or ‘Somers' and ‘Summers'—that would be scattered in an alphabetical list. Soundex gives each name a key using its first letter
and dropping the vowels and giving number codes to similar sounding [consonants] (like ‘S' and ‘C'). The system gives the same code, L350, for ‘Laden' and all similar-sounding names: Lydon, Lawton, and Leedham.”

In other words, it's right on target for Antichrists.

5
The New Pornographers, Bimbo's (San Francisco, June 9)
The songs—“It's Only Divine Right,” “Letter from an Occupant”—were rockets. On “The Laws Have Changed,” as Carl Newman boosted Neko Case's somersaulting lead singing with falsetto chirps, flags flew. The band—with keyboard player Blaine Thurier twirling his left arm when he just couldn't stop himself and Kurt Dahle smiling over the hardest bass drum sound you'll ever hear—was its own air raid siren, and the message was
All Clear
.

6
The Riverboat Gamblers,
Something to Crow About
(Gearhead)
From Denton, Texas: Beatle-era punk—the Knickerbockers with “Lies,” say—with a thrash follow-through, like the Descendants' “Weinerschnitzel.” On “Ice Water” or “Catch Your Eye” they can make you believe the style was invented yesterday. That they take it all back on the last cut, with what starts off as a rewrite of Santo and Johnny's 1958 “Sleep Walk,” only means they'll do slow dancing if you ask politely.

7
The Squids, Tracy Hall (Norwich, Vermont, May 30)
The Magic Rat (Steve Weinstein) reports: “Prominently noted on poster advertising a benefit show: ‘Alcohol and Smoke Free. Please bring a clean pair of shoes to protect the dance floor.' ”

8
Ben Harper, “With My Own Two Hands” from
Diamonds on the Inside
(Virgin)
People used to attack Sting for his fake Jamaican accent; how does Harper get away with it? First by coming on like the god Denis Johnson said Bob Marley would turn into, then playing the Joan Osborne slob-like-the-rest-of-us Jesus.

9
Larry Clark,
Punk Picasso
(Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York; through June 28)
New York Eye (Emily Marcus) writes: “Clark made his name with the speed-freak photos in
Tulsa
in 1971 and the film
Kids
in 1995; his first gallery show in five years is a collection of mementos that illustrate his life with embarrassing intimacy. There's no wall text or labels for correspondence and talismans (for Roger Maris, Sonny Liston, Bruce Lee), for old records (Billie Holiday's
Lady Sings the Blues
, Bob Dylan's “George Jackson”) both mounted and playing through the gallery speakers. A torn piece of paper with a quote from Blake shares space with a clipping about the execution of three Arkansas serial killers and shots of a young Clark and his Tulsa friends giving each other blow jobs and shooting up. What makes Clark's photos and films powerful is the clarity of his voyeurism: his palpable lust. On the walls, the uncoordinated elements of Clark as kid, family man, and shock-artist go a long way toward depicting the whole man—and still do little to lessen the primary affront of his work.”

10
A wedding at Gale Mansion, Minneapolis (May 25)
DJ Joel Stitzel's repertoire went back and forth between classic soul (Betty Banks's 1964 original of “Go Now,” Aretha Franklin's 1967 “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)”) and older group sounds: the Chantels' 1958 “Maybe” never sounded richer. And as the music for the bride and groom's first dance “Love Theme from
The Godfather
” never sounded stranger. “Just this one time, I'll let you ask me about my affairs,” said one guest after another.