Plan 9
Keep Your Cool and Read the Rules

...but why, can even the garage evolve? Absolutely yes, and just think of Plan 9 and their «Keep Your Cool And Read The Rules», the unsurpassable summa of the genre ...

As if I were Luzzato Fegiz, I’m going to extract a few lines from one of my previous, authoritative writings to justify the following.

Let's start with an incontrovertible assumption.

There is the Neanderthal garage, ugly, dirty, and nasty, in which Gravedigger V and Morlocks excel.

Then there is the evolved garage, which in words I don't quite know what it is, but «Keep Your Cool» definitely represents its summa.

I'll venture to say that the evolved garage is the kind that, while maintaining close ties with the sound of the various «Nuggets» and «Battle Of The Garages», nonetheless transforms it into something so unheard of that it even appeals to that goat of your brother, who is still stuck on E.L.P.'s «Love Beach».

Well, just for example, a while ago my brother (just a random one) came over to the house and, in the middle of «Poor Boy», he let out a satisfied comment. «Damn - I promptly reply - this masterpiece has been spinning on the turntable for more than twenty years and you only notice it today? Idiot - I conclude affectionately». And this illuminating anecdote dispels any doubt about the value of «Keep Your Cool».

Oh my, I must say my big brother was also lucky to stumble upon «Poor Boy», the best of the bunch, so I'll start from here.

Guys, this track literally drives me crazy, and if you've already lent an ear to the link just above you will have understood why. Stuff that has that guitar riff that sounds like the Dire Straits out of their minds shortly after taking some bad acid; and then that long free-jazz insert (free-jazz??? Free-jazz!!!) that seems, in order, «Funhouse», «Black Girls», «Next To Nothing». Now, tell me if you've ever come across a contamination between garage and free-jazz or if you could even remotely imagine it before: if the answer is yes, you have already experienced the evolved garage.

However, it's necessary to take a step back to talk about the opening «That's Life», another absolutely mind-blowing track, lost as it is among slowdowns and accelerations and rapid mood swings and sensations. So much so that the first time I approached «Keep Your Cool», coming from the Neanderthalian garage experience, I thought that «That's Life» was, all together, «That's Life», «Poor Boy», and «The Beast Was An Old Tale». Then, when I learned to count, I realized that there were six tracks in total on side A, and the numbers didn't add up, so I understood that «That's Life», as absurd as it is, is a s-i-n-g-l-e song. And, my gosh, there are more ideas in these almost six minutes than in the entire Fuzztones discography!

Yes, there's also «The Beast Was An Old Tale», and what to say? Maybe that for the first ten seconds it seems like a non-evolved garage track, but then, perhaps due to some odd vocal attempt or some random guitar strum, it even reminds me of the Iron Maiden in a Dire Straits version (still out of their minds, after taking some bad acid), or maybe it's just because of the beast; but anyway, Maiden never attempted these numbers.

And since I'm at it, I can't hold back and I throw in the mix the Devo, and voilà, here's the robotic/psychotic «Machines».

In this chaos, only one "normal" track, the very short acoustic blues «Face In The Box».

Now, looking back, you might think «Wow, he must have told us about the whole record». Not at all, I only talked to you about what's on side A, in fact, the oppressive «For Hillary», is missing for which what Ian Curtis sang in «Decades» applies: weary inside, now our heart's lost forever. Here, however, it's only a matter of feelings.

Sooner or later, side B of this truly epoch-making record will also arrive, and you can decide whether to take that as a promise or a threat.