ngw

Batterings? :) Rotten's voice is just not the same as Hell's; the singing is simply identical. Same intonation, same style, same off-pitch notes—it's clear that we aren't talking about voice in the strictest sense, they were distinct individuals. No one has ever claimed otherwise about the PIL, but the PIL have repeatedly stated that the driving force behind the project was Rotten, and that seems quite evident from the records. Flowers of Romance, for example, is a great album, and Wobble isn't there. The Ramones changed very little; at their debut, only 10 people cared about them, just like all the other “trailblazers” at CBGB's (Television, Patti Smith, Blondie); they certainly weren't the ones to threaten prog, that's for sure. They are part of the plethora of American proto-punk groups from that period, and honestly, if I had to choose between them and Television, I’d say it would be a lost cause. On top of that, they made 15 albums without changing their formula even a fraction; it seems your "history of rock" is different from mine.

The book is a good book, the film is a masterpiece of the 20th century. Just the sets from that film are enough to make me come back for more.

Indeed, it seems that underneath it all there is nothing. At first, it feels like the usual "are we doing it or is it happening," but in the end it’s "either we do it, or it is."

Yet I wrote in Italian. Because there are two possibilities, either it's a split personality (one personality is that of an idiot, the other personality is that of a clubber), or you don't screw around. Simple, right? Holy shit, Caz, don't you have 50 euros (to give to a hooker or a psychiatrist)?

In short, relax, first you say to just mess around, then as soon as something is mentioned that you like, you start hurling insults, you ask something and when you get a response you say it doesn't interest you, you say not to focus on the technique but as soon as a group lacks in that aspect you point it out right away... Are you sure you're not straight edge? That’s the impression I get. But maybe the proggy who talks about things he doesn't know and hasn’t gotten laid since '75 is part of your persona, you never know with Caz.

But you know you don't look like someone who's having fun and messing around?

Look on the bright side: I’ve never seen him staring at his hands, nor has he ever released whiny albums like "the angry ones leave, the sexist homophobes arrive." In fact, unlike others, he left the music scene only to come back a few years later. But why the hell am I saying this to someone who confuses pantera with chocolate?

Dude, among the plethora of things you miss, nicknames (like straightedge) are given well after the fact; maybe today there's someone proudly going around saying "I'm straightedge," but back then, definitely not, especially because in the early '80s the scene was made up of about 200 jerks, and not because of some bullshit cliques. I’ve never seen a Minor Threat show (which I followed from birth to death) with more than 300 attendees, a mix of punks, curious onlookers, and people just passing by. The same goes for Husker Du, whom I followed less, but prior to signing with SST, if they surpassed that crowd, it was a miracle. It was different for bands from old England, like those poor Exploited, who drew a decent crowd. At least this was Washington; New York and Los Angeles (and Chicago) were different, but they also had "cult" venues like CBGB's. Minor Threat _are not_ sXe; they sparked the movement, but the MT song wasn’t meant to be a series of dogmas to follow (which is what the sXe did), but rather, as always, a piece to be interpreted broadly— instead of getting wasted, find something better to do. For the record, McKay is not sXe; that was one of the things I asked him when I met him. We don’t get talked about anymore, it’s true, and honestly, I don’t care. The only thing that remains is the music, and even today you can feel the influence of bands like Minor Threat and Bad Brains, from the MT covers by the Beastie Boys to the rage of Teengenerate. And as it should be, that music served to become something else; doing the same things over and over gets boring. I did nothing 'don't,' I drank, I hooked up, I smoked, I was a decent troublemaker, I didn’t have a mohawk, and my hair was my natural color.

Sfascia, do you know this record? Because the review intrigued me, but from the comments, it’s unclear.

I continue with my thesis that these are proggy fomenters.