Whipping Toy Forms

No.200, aired January 23, 2013, with readings from J.H. Prynne’s 2003 poem Biting The Air.
 
The first half of the program was devoted to a musical thot experiment in which I played tracks from GWAR’s 1988 Hell-O alternating with 3 pieces from John Colrane’s 1959 Giant Steps.
 
The ear loves the unexpected, and is easy to fool. In marketing terms, Giant Steps is jazz, merely: society music, co-opted, recuperated, safe – & in the past that is how I have received it. Even for jazz musicians Giant Steps is considered an “exercise” – something to master & then move on from. And the hard-core habit can also be a great deadener, even the monstrous perversity of GWAR warms into a fuzzy bath if not lifted out of its sci-fi punk/metal niche market.
 
So I am mixing the two. Is this epicurian eclectisism, the aesthete requires variety in his consumption? The contrast brings out the distinct flavours? Yes, but more than that. The aural miscegenation spurs actual thot.
 
In Love with a Dead Dog is a depraved joke that nevertheless follows the conventions of a love song, invokes those cliches, laughs at them. At the climax, the love object dies, then the heavy metal riff returns & order is restored. This is illness. Then the drums at the beginning of the Coltrane quartet’s Countown dramatize the moment of illness. Coltrane’s Tenor sax appears and I can hear it as breakdown, madness. In the GWAR context I can hear the frantic energy of the players. It sounds insanely fast compared to what jazz should be - jazz on speed. Occasional conventional jazz runs embedded in the session sound parodic. This segues into GWAR's Slutman City, which, after the warm accoustic aura, sounds ugly and threatening. Something really awful is happening - another gruesome GWAR character arrives at a city of life without shame, & again, GWAR delivers on the violent promise of rock. But these sleezy riffs & perverse anthems would be nearly inaudible if the CD was played straight through. Coltrane’s Spiral comes on but the ear is still living in the slums of Slutman City - the jazz band is playing in a club, but the horror show is still going. The music is jazz, but it is describing, or accompanying, some abominable act in an aggressively detached way – is that possible? The band is telling a story about something very human and very touching. There is a musical argument here as well. The musical mind keeps wandering, then catches itself again. Hiddeous monsters are dancing in an elegant ballroom. Are they feasting on human flesh? Am I hearing this quartet’s underlying anger, or is it only my own fantasy? It is music for a TV show or movie. Quick-cutting, tons of action into a small space, a drama as memory-dream sequence. Then a slower GWAR track, War Toy, feels epic, like I have been listening for a hundred years. It describes a toy, but it sounds like the depraved narrator has a child slave. The track seems like a review of something, the toy or the GWAR album itself, or rather GWAR's stage show & mythos - “Let's all go drink and kill and fart ... Now sure it's fun but is it art?"
 
The above was written the weekend before my program, when I plugged in the GWAR disc, but thanks to my media player’s shuffle feature heard instead “Countdown” from Giant Steps, and was shocked. During the program, I read poetry by J.H. Prynne that added a hole nuther level of nasty to the mix, but I haven’t had time to make detailed notes, except that the song “War Toy” is introduced with the following words, read at the end of “Spiral” – “You didn’t know that oh really how extended even so familar / whipping toy forms as a habit too lapped across its place setting nroe sougth nor bought fancy never braved: infinity”
 
Part 1

1. Ein Stitcher – Emetics
2. Captain Crunch – GWAR
3. Cousin Mary – John Coltrane
4. I’m In Love (With A Dead Dog) – GWAR
5. Countownd – John Coltrane
6. Slutman City – GWAR
7. Spiral – John Coltrane
8. War Toy - GWAR
 
Part 2

1. Obawa The Collar Boy – Emetics
2. 10-30 Train – Ugly Ducklings
3. You’d Better Register – Static Eyesore
4. Creatures Of Habit – Contaminate
5. Lil’ Copulator – Emetics
6. This Means War – Contaminate
7. Pinch It – Static Eyesore
8. Freakin – Emetics
9. Just In Case You Wonder – Ugly Ducklings
10. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
11. Jinx The Larynx – Emetics
12. Hell Is Other People – Contaminate
13. I Need Your Love – Ugly Ducklings
14. Barry Bongwater – Contaminate
15. Exit Plexit – Simply Saucer