MetaChat - Rock out with your mock out

Anybody who likes music ironically doesn't like music at all.

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 10:19

Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains and waters are not waters. But now I have got to the very substance I am at rest. For it is just that I saw mountains again as mountains and waters once again as waters.

posted by kenko 19 July | 10:33

This is, apparently, MC post number 1000 btw. PARTY OVER HE-YEAH!

posted by Capn 19 July | 10:47

Anybody who likes music ironically doesn't like music at all.

Bingo. I'm proud to say that I skipped the middle phase. Liking bands ironically strikes me as the height of self-indulgence. The chapter on the Great White concert fire in the new Klosterman is very illuminating on this.

*fires up "Shoot To Thrill"*

posted by jonmc 19 July | 10:48

also

posted by Capn 19 July | 10:55

Gimme a little...

Touch Too Much

It was one of those nights
When you turned out the lights
And everything comes into view
She was taking her time
I was losing my mind
There was nothing that she wouldn't do
It wasn't the first
It wasn't the last
She knew we was making love
I was so satisfied
Deep down inside
Like a hand in a velvet glove
Seems like a touch, a touch too much
Seems like a touch, a touch too much
Too much for my body, too much for my brain
This damned woman's gonna drive me insane
She's got a touch, a touch too much
She had the face of an angel
Smiling with sin
The body of Venus with arms
Dealing with danger
Stroking my skin
Like a thunder and lightening storm
It wasn't the first
It wasn't the last
It wasn't that she didn't care
She wanted it hard
And wanted it fast
She liked it done medium rare
Seems like a touch, touch too much
You know it's much too much, much too much
I really want to feel you, touch too much
Girl you know you're getting me, much too much
Seems like a touch
Just a dirty little touch
I really need your touch
Cause you're much too much too much

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 10:57

I have always liked AC/DC and will always like AC/DC. Comepletely irony-free.

posted by LeeJay 19 July | 11:01

Being neither a man, nor an AC/DC fan, I guess I'm not qualified to comment. The husband, however, has remained unwavering in his love of AC/DC.

Then again, he's an accountant and I don't think they ever do anything ironically.

posted by jrossi4r 19 July | 11:02

Sorry to split threads, but:

Bon Scott or Brian Johnson?

[Zere can be awnly wan!]

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 11:07

Anybody who likes music ironically doesn't like music at all.

Bingo. I'm proud to say that I skipped the middle phase. Liking bands ironically strikes me as the height of self-indulgence. The chapter on the Great White concert fire in the new Klosterman is very illuminating on this.

*fires up "Shoot To Thrill"*

posted by jonmc 19 July | 11:10

That's the most delayed double I've ever seen. How did you do that, jonmc?

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 11:12

I dunno.

But now that AC/DC is settled:

"You wanted the best, you got the best...."

posted by jonmc 19 July | 11:23

How can anyone like AC/DC ironically? Journey, maybe...

posted by gaspode 19 July | 11:24

I like Journey unironically. Escape was the first tape I bought myself at 11. Just Saturday afternoon, I was in my bar and I put "Don't Stop Believin'" This young black girl who couldn't have been more than 20 sang along word for word. "I bought this record before you were born!" I said. She just shrugged and kept on singing any shimmying.

posted by jonmc 19 July | 11:32

I like Journey secretly and furtively. Like porn, or masturbating to porn.

But not like masturbating to Journey.

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 11:35

Well, jonmc, that's a much cooler first tape than mine (Wham! - the horror, the horror)

posted by gaspode 19 July | 11:38

I saw journey and ac/dc live a couple of times each and they were worth every cent. Great performers.

posted by arse_hat 19 July | 11:40

I like Journey

posted by LeeJay 19 July | 11:43

Well, jonmc, that's a much cooler first tape than mine (Wham! - the horror, the horror)

Well, you're a chick, I suppose you can be forgiven for digging an obvious homosexual singing bad synthpop in a ridiculous outfit.

posted by jonmc 19 July | 11:45

My first tape was Falco: Einzelhaft (bought for "Der Kommissar" in German) followed swiftly by Billy Idol: Rebel Yell. Or maybe it was the other way around. Billy Idol got stretched out more, along with my upper lip in imitation. My older brother had all the BÖC and ACDC I could borrow. My folks rocked the Tom Petty and Elvis Costello tip.

98 Rock (Baltimore) and DC 101 (Washington) were cool back then. AOR -- Album-Oriented Rock -- was the genre du jour. Six sides at six, that sort of thing.

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 11:46

...and, I was like, 9.

My first cd on the other hand was a Dinosaur Jr one. So things did improve a bit.

posted by gaspode 19 July | 11:54

My first CD was Nevermind. But the important thing is, everyone likes Primus.

My Name Is Mud, MMMMM-Mud...

posted by jonmc 19 July | 11:55

My first CD was Voodoo Jive: The Best of Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 11:57

I guess the fact that I've never been interested in AC/DC means that I'm not actually a man, then? That's a bit of a disappointment. Pretty bad news for Mrs. nylon, too.

posted by nylon 19 July | 12:07

First Tape: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

First CD: The Cure, Mixed up.

Make of that what you will.

posted by Capn 19 July | 12:07

That whole Cure thing was ironic at first, then you found you really liked them, and then it aged back into irony, right?

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 12:09

I guess I'm not a man. I've never liked AC/DC.

Journey?! Blecch.

My first tapes were the ones I recorded off my crappy transistor radio tuned to the local new wave stations with my Hitachi portable cassette recorder. (KROQ back when it wasn't a corporate whorefest, mostly.)

The first tape I bought was "Catching up with Depeche Mode". I think it worried my mom immensely, but probably not as much as when I started bringing home live Throbbing Gristle bootlegs from the crazy tape dude at the swapmeet. CDs didn't exist yet.

posted by loquacious 19 July | 12:11

well, nylon, were you interested in some teststerone and bombast laden musical ensemble at some point? Punk counts.

also first vinyl (I'm old school):
Dumb Ditties, purchased at Caldors when I was 7. I've managed to DL most of the songs on it again, cause I still love silly novelty records.

posted by jonmc 19 July | 12:13

That whole Cure thing was ironic at first, then you found you really liked them, and then it aged back into irony, right?

No, it turns out that I never liked them.

(I keeed, I keeeeeeed!)

posted by Capn 19 July | 12:14

Hugh, that Screamin' Jay may not be my first CD, but it's certainly the coolest I've ever bought. Too bad Voodoo Jive's the only Screamin' Jay around, now. (Saw him warm up (how the shoulda-been-more-mighty had fallen) for Nick Lowe once.)

posted by Absit Invidia 19 July | 12:20

lol great capn

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 12:21

Oh! Oh! And first vinyl: James Bond themes. As elevator music.

AC/DC memory: Highway to Hell LP, played 33 1/3, on homegrown. Giggleville.

posted by Absit Invidia 19 July | 12:24

Um, I meant LP played 45 rpm, and then giggleville.

/beer

posted by Absit Invidia 19 July | 12:27

I would love to hear The Chipmunks cover Touch Too Much.

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 12:31

First tape: Thriller.

First 45 bought with my own money: That novelty song about the Battle of New Orleans (In 1814 we took a little trip . . .)

First record bought with my own money: He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper (and I still have a soft spot for the "Parents Just Don't Understand Video).

I can't remember my first CD.

posted by dame 19 July | 12:38

jonmc: well, okay, I was, ahem, *cough* um...I mean, I, uh...(I was a pre-teen Queen fan*). But then I stopped liking them. So I guess that means any time now I'll be entering my second phase and I'll start liking them ironically. I have a shotgun and cyanide pills on hand for the onset of phase 2.

*this shouldn't be read as me being a fan of pre-teen Queens.

First wax cylinder: Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
First 8 track cartridge: Taboo by Arthur Lyman
First tape: Aka Meme by Merzbow (1984)
First record: Fucked Up And Naked by Les Rallizes Denudes (1977)
First CD: Sweet Kisses by Jessica Simpson (1999)
First Blu-ray: EFM modulation with monotone band test disc #P030712-F by Matsushita Electric Industrial Company (2004)

posted by nylon 19 July | 12:43

That novelty song about the Battle of New Orleans (In 1814 we took a little trip . . .)

Performed by Johnny Horton (who sadly cut a lot of racist 45's during the civil rights era),which was itself parodied by Homer & Jethro in "The Battle Of Camp Cucomunga."

posted by jonmc 19 July | 12:43

first tape: Foreigner 4

first cd: Sting "Bring on the Night"

And I only started appreciating AC/DC late in life. Like in the past couple of years. (Even though my friend Tim Doble played Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap for me on vinyl when I was, what?, like 12.)

posted by papercake 19 July | 12:48

Wow, dame, those are great. Funny, I never considered Battle of New Orleans a novelty song. My brother and I used to sing it repeatedly from the backseat on trips to the beach. That, and for some reason, every time the road passed through a cornfield, we would chant "Indians in the cornfield, Indians in the cornfield...." I think it was actually from some Thanksgiving skit we were in.

We also did the cornfield thing at Antietam and Manassas and Gettysburg, when we visited the battlefield parks, without the slightest thought to historical verisimilitude.

Come to think of it, it would be pretty cool to show up at a Civil War reenactment as a band of Iroquois warriors and pincushion both bluecoats and rebels with practice arrows. You'll put an eye out, kid!

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince rule. I also have a Young MC cassingle.

Hey jonmc, Johnny Horton isn't the same Johnny as Johnny Reb, is he?

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 12:52

First tape was Synchronicity. First CD was Nothing's Shocking. (It took me awhile to get my own CD player.)

Jonmc, every time you play the old man card, you make me feel ancient.

posted by jrossi4r 19 July | 12:53

First album: Probably Thriller. Either that or Men at Work. I loved me some Men at Work when I was 7.

posted by LeeJay 19 July | 12:53

Performed by Johnny Horton (who sadly cut a lot of racist 45's during the civil rights era)

Really? That's funny, the guy who introduced me to the song (my mother's boyfriend) was black. I wonder if he didn't know or didn't care. I really love that stupid song--I still know most of the words. (If anyone found an mp3 of it and sent it my way, well, I'd do something nice back . . .)

posted by dame 19 July | 12:55

ok, i have to add something from people trapped in the land of buttrock:
if it's all AC/DC all the time, you better get your irony up, it doesn't mean you don't wanna drive to back in black occasionally but it's beyond oppressive. how many of you would voluntarily see an AC/DC cover band? the unironic kind?
AC/DC was my first arena rock concert.
i'm removing myself from this thread until i have coffee
or something
i think my first cd was violent femmes

posted by ethylene 19 July | 12:57

I agree with the initial hypothesis and believe it applies equally well to beer.

First, you like beer. You just drink it without worrying about whether you should be drinking something else or not. You can accept it as it is.

At some point, you go through a stage where you drink wine, and go on and on about its bouquet or what great legs it has in the glass, or fancy mixed drinks that require specialized ingredients that can only be purchased at a small dusty liquor store, or aged single-malt scotch or port that you keep in a cabinet and share with your friends over cigars. You only drink beer if its a microbrew, an import, or has non-beer ingredients added (berries, honey, etc.), or as an ironic statement (most of the people currently drinking PBR are at this stage).

Then that stage passes, and you can just drink beer again. Mmmmm, beer.

posted by yhbc 19 July | 12:59

who else thinks jon needs to watch scrubs?

posted by ethylene 19 July | 12:59

And:

First Album: The Beatles, Yellow Submarine.
First 8-Track: Jim Croce, Greatest Hits.
First Cassette: Alice Cooper, Greatest Hits.
First CD: The Beatles, Abbey Road.

posted by yhbc 19 July | 13:01

Hee hee, Hugh. I *have* always been proud of my taste in music. My mommy has good taste, so I was just fated to develop well. I think I was the only four-year-old in Orange County who knew all the words to "Psycho Killer." Then again, I was also the only seven-year-old who could explain why Reagan's tax code changes screwed the middle and working classes. Have I mentioned that my mommy is very--um--special?

posted by dame 19 July | 13:02

Oh first vinyl? True Colors by Split Enz. Here I have no worries. It remains a classic.

posted by gaspode 19 July | 13:03

how many of you would voluntarily see an AC/DC cover band? the unironic kind?

*raises hand*

My unironic love of stuff like AC/DC and Kiss dosen't mean I eschew more "sophisticated stuff," (anyone who knows me will tell you that when it comes to diversity in listening, I've got most people beat)so I'm not trapped in the land of butt-rock, it's just a land I like to hang out in sometimes.

And I've seen scrubs. I wasn't impressed. It's that way with a lot of stuff people rave about (Interpol, Radiohead, Arrested Development), I just cant see what the big deal is.

I think I was the only four-year-old in Orange County who knew all the words to "Psycho Killer."

You should hear The Fools' parody "Psycho Chicken"

posted by jonmc 19 July | 13:07

How about second vinyl: Kansas -- Point Of No Return

No one ever mentions Kansas anymore, not even ironicalishly. Dust in the wind . . .

posted by Absit Invidia 19 July | 13:13

dude..."Carry On My Wayward Son," my be the second worst song in history, topped (bottomed?) only by that "Summer Girls," peice of maggot infested mule droppings by LFO.

posted by jonmc 19 July | 13:15

Yeah, but I was just a kid . . .

And that's, like, the first time I've ever read you say some music was bad, so now I (shuddering new guy) feel weirdly chastised. [smiley emotocon]

posted by Absit Invidia 19 July | 13:20

You should all hear Ground Zero's Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver. 1.28.

I own a letter sent around 1830 by a Dublin ancestor across the great wide ocean to my forebears in Kansas. It has a couple years' worth of news in it, but what I find remarkable is the envelope, which is addressed to [so-and-so], County Kansas, America.

Didn't Kansas have two drummers? Four guitarists? Sixteen bassists, and 256 singers?

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 13:24

i wanted that alleged radiohead cover of dust in the wind with sigur ros
and i have way to much chastizing to do of jon but i am so not in the mood right now.

posted by ethylene 19 July | 13:31

I don't know, but they had an album cover with a really cool-looking galleon sailing off the edge of the world.

(And in reality world, that 1830 letter must be fascinating. For real. Times change, but two years' worth of news will always trump this afternoon's email about what cousin so-and-so had for lunch.)

posted by Absit Invidia 19 July | 13:31

sorry, that was godspeed you black emperor

posted by ethylene 19 July | 13:32

I didn't like AC/DC much the first time around. Still, when my 12 y.o. started expressing an interest in metal, I got him Highway to Hell and Metallica and danced around the Christmas tree to them waxing nostalgic.

first album (not counting the Beach Boys & Beatles & Joni Mitchell & Bob Dylan & Maria Muldauer & Firesign Theater I inherited from my brother along with his "portable" woodgrained 700 pound record player): Grateful Dead, Wake of the Flood. First tape - No idea. Maybe the Hogan's Heroes theme recorded off the TV when I was 7? First CD - probably Bare Naked Ladies. Took me a while to convert off vinyl.

I still have most of these records and tapes AND the machines to play them on. Although the tapes are getting cranky and soon I will have to decide whether to replace the English Beat or consign them to the dustbin of history. Do you believe my Modern English cassette actually died the last time I tried to play it? Only 20 years old, sheesh.

posted by mygothlaundry 19 July | 13:49

I came late to the ac/dc party so I guess I passed the first two phases. Mrs Geezer on the other hand has been a life long fan and assures me there's never been any irony required.

posted by dodgygeezer 19 July | 14:38

you have all been spared the earnest earnest children of diminished variety

posted by ethylene 19 July | 14:41

and less ability

posted by ethylene 19 July | 14:41

I went through another ACDC phase last spring. Something about spring and ACDC for me...

First album: Ace Frehley's solo album
First CD: Soundgarden's "Louder Than Love"

posted by atom12 19 July | 14:45

My brother's first album was Double Platinum, I think. Or maybe Spectres.

posted by Hugh Janus 19 July | 14:52

First vinyl: KISS - Destroyer
First cassette: Prince - Purple Rain
First CD: Pixies - Doolittle

jonmc: Dumb Ditties ruled! "The Ballad of Irving" never failed to crack my shit up when I was six.

posted by gigawhat? 19 July | 16:57

I got introduced to AC/DC at a dance party my older sister's best friend put on. The rebel boys threw on the record and they shook it all night long. It didn't take at first, but I was too young and just there because my family wanted to pack us up all in one spot. They've since grown on me, despite a very narrow minded "too punk" for metal / hard rock phase in my late teens. I was so strident then it hurts to even think about it now.

My first purchases are nothing to write home about, but I feel like indulging that nothing:

First vinyl was probably that Disco Duck record or a Batman story lp, but those were gifts so let's see....my first vinyl I bought I can't remember very well. It might've been MJ's Thriller, but it is possible that my mother simply bought it for herself and I just listened to it. The last vinyl I bought slot is currently filled by the "director's cut" of Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand. I'm not done with vinyl though.

First tapes I remember well because I bought them for my first Walkman. The two tapes were purchased at the same time: Culture Club's Colour By Numbers and Quiet Riot's Metal Health. Oh yeah! 1983-84: I was 9ish. Last tape was the Dead Kennedy's Frankenchrist and I am most assuredly done with cassettes.

First CD was either Ministry's The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, or Alien Sex Fiend's Too Much Acid. That was around 88/89 I think.

posted by safetyfork 19 July | 17:57

First 45rpm single: "Convoy," C.W. McCall

First LP bought with my own money: "Endless Summer," The Beach Boys.

First CD: "Revolver," The Beatles.

When I was in high school we only listened to Journey because the girls did. In retrospect, it didn't do me a damn bit of good in that department.

posted by Marxchivist 19 July | 18:38

hah! thank god it wasn't bread

posted by ethylene 19 July | 18:41

Bread will always remind me of that episode of the Hardy Boys where Sean Cassidy's girlfriend died. How I sobbed!!!

If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint yooooouuuuuu.........

posted by jrossi4r 19 July | 19:34

First vinyl ever purchased for me (age 5, c. 1974): Elton John's Greatest Hits

First vinyl ever purchased for me to sate my beseeching, begging, and pleading (age 9, Xmas 1978): Sargent Pepper's

First vinyl ever purchased with my own money earned via babysitting ($8; age 12, c. 1981): Split Enz, "True Colours" (with cool laser-etched design!)

posted by scody 19 July | 21:42

i use to have to buy best of and special multitarack cds to justify the cost
i can't remember my first vinyl but i think my sister's first was billy joel and stray cats and B52's.
we grew up without music

posted by ethylene 19 July | 21:53

Oh.
My.
God.

I like AC/DC again. I am old.

posted by Doohickie 19 July | 22:54

/me gives Doohickie a beer, turns on "It's a Long Way To the Top"

posted by yhbc 19 July | 23:08

First album: Air Supply - The One That You Love
First cassette: don't remember
First CD: REM - Out of Time

I didn't particularly like or dislike AC/DC when I was younger, but I do now.

posted by deborah 20 July | 00:35

I’m somewhat surprised that the Bon Scott v. Brian Johnson gauntlet was thrown earlier in this thread, only to be ignored. If I may, I‘ll take it up now.

*stoops to pick up gauntlet, gives out old man grunt*

Back In Black aside, for the most part the lyrics of the Johnson-era AC/DC are comprised of lugubrious, heavy-handed double entendre. The riffs are still there, but the sense of mischievous fun that Scott always brought to the band is seriously lacking, as far as I can see. Bon may have acted the macho swaggerer, but he took the piss more often than he boasted. He was just this naughty little imp, and as such was the perfect compliment to Angus’ schoolboy-in-disgrace act. Johnson just comes off as bluster and compensation.

*considers dropping gauntlet again*

*decides to take it down to the pawn shop instead*

Oh, and: first vinyl – Snoopy vs. The Red Baron, The Royal Coachmen

First tape: might have been Decade, Neil Young

First CD: Number One Record/Radio City, Big Star.

posted by bmarkey 20 July | 01:43

oh, i remember! i think my first vinyl was "chicken soup with rice" or something very similiar

i suppose that was my "smile and a ribbon"

posted by ethylene 20 July | 01:52

Spot on, bmarkey. Huzzah for Bon!

posted by Hugh Janus 20 July | 08:46

It was The Royal Guardsmen, bmarkey.

Bon may have acted the macho swaggerer,

He could goof on himself, but the badass persona was genuine. The dude had done time for belting a cop.

posted by jonmc 20 July | 16:04

Royal Guardsmen, you say? ... Yeah, that could be it. I was going off ofa 30-some-year-old memory.

As for Bon taking a poke at the police: could be the work of a badass, could be someone whose judgement was impaired by our old friend alcohol. The Markey family has a history of drunken shennanigans involving the cops, and we are anything but badasses. I don't know the particulars of the incident you mention, but I could see it going either way. Or both - they're not exactly mutually exclusive states.

But all that's sorta beside the point. Where do you stand on the Bon vs. Brian question?

posted by bmarkey 20 July | 19:39

I like 'em both. But, ultimately Bon gets the nod.

posted by jonmc 21 July | 13:28

19 July 2005