This week: Metal, Stevie Wonder, Physical Injury
Despite having worked in the Solar Panel industry for five years now, the time has come for me to literally put my money where my mouth is and get solar panels installed on the roof of our house. I went through the process of finding an installer and picking out parts and generally getting things prepped, and we have an install date now scheduled for the 22nd of this month. The installers are going to need to put scaffolding up in our back garden so I spent much of this weekend clearing out old garden furniture and clearing the patio in preparation for their visit.
In the process of doing so (I think the fateful moment was me hurling the significantly weighty base of a wooden outdoor table into the wood recycling section of our local recycling centre) I've been betrayed by my aging body, and something behind and under my left shoulder blade is now torn, twisted, or something else because I'm in a reasonable amount of pain and critically, it's impeding my ability to type at any speed, which is why this is coming out on a Monday this week and why, to the delight of my haters, these blog entries might be somewhat shorter for the next couple of weeks while my body knits itself back together.
So, apologies in advance - these writeup will be more sparse and functional until I can lift my left arm above "resting on desk" height without it hurting. At least I am right handed, so this whole thing is mostly an inconvenience and not a major impediment. With that covered, please enjoy a couple of brief paragraphs about what I listened to outside of female-led pop punk this week.
You'll know if you read my article about listening to 43 different covers of Sk8er Boi like an idiot that I was already a fan of Canadian melodic metal band Living Dead Girl, whose Exorcism album I listened to in the pandemic while trolling for new music, and picking them because they both got write-ups for up-and-coming metal bands (from the same place which would recommend me Spiritbox as well) and their band name is an explicit homage to a Rob Zombie song which I enjoy. Exorcism is very good melodic metal and I need to listen to more of their stuff.
Then, because I listened to Living Dead Girl, I listened to the album which contains their namesake song Hellbilly Deluxe: 13 Tales of Cadaverous Cavorting Inside The Spookeshow International* by Rob Zombie, and then the album where I first heard Rob Zombie's music, White Zombie's Astro Creep: 2000 - Songs of Love, Destruction and other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head. I know Dragula** is an incredible meme, but both of these albums are fantastic crunchy metal and Zombie has delightfully insane delivery of his own outrageous lyrics. The fact that metal can be camp and fantastical and wicked is what stops the whole genre from feeling like a self-important grindfest and Rob Zombie is the champion of that.
This scene of Faith and Buffy dancing in Buffy Season 3 is soundtracked by 'Living Dead Girl' by Rob Zombie, and I love that song, which is why I watched this scene so many times.
One of the other managers at work loves metal as well, and we've been known to exchange recommendations from time to time, so I suggested he check out Living Dead Girl and in turn he recommended Negative Spaces by Poppy which I really enjoyed listening to. Metal, especially modern metal with powerful female vocals can really lift me out of whatever funk I am in, and it was excellent motivation while I did strenuous household chores this week. Finally, I listened to Supernova by Nova Twins, more powerful female metal music because I ran out of Poppy songs before I ran out of jobs that needed doing around the house. Nova Twins straddle nicely the kind of campy hijinks of Rob Zombie and the in-your-face aggression of Poppy, and I've listened to this album several, several times since it was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize a couple of years ago (I think). I'm taking Catherine to see them in October and she's never been to a metal show before so that promises to be an interesting experience.
Sometimes my intent was to do something based on the date, but my plan to listen to Americana over the 4th of July seemed gauche considering what is happening over there; while stuck for inspiration, I was saved by quiz show guru Ken Jennings.
Who am I to argue with Ken Jennings?
I love Stevie Wonder. All of these albums, but more commonly Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs In The Key Of Life were regular features of my childhood listening; I'm not sure my parents owned Music Of My Mind and Fulfullingness' First Finale because while I've listened to them as an adult, I don't have the bone-deep lyrical knowledge that I do for the songs on the other three albums. While in the past I've described bands like ABBA as people who's album catalogue is a kind of extended Greatest Hits, filled with songs you know and other album deep cuts which never got enough of a profile to make it out into the ears of non-dedicated fans, the music across these albums feels like every single song could be a big hit; how else do you explain the variety of songs from these albums, from the incredible anthems of the black American experience like Living For The City and Passtime Paradise with full on grooves like Higher Ground and Sir Duke?
I don't have a pithy anecdote or childhood memory that I can share that would do justice to how good these albums are. There's a rare combination across these records of both struggle and a hope for a better future, a celebration of cultural identity and a vision of a world where all cultures are respected equally***. I don't have a religious background, but if I did, I'd want my church to be inspired by the teachings of Saint Stevie. In his music can the real American dream be found, penned fifty years ago in a time of change, where without irony or 'cringe'****, he took the promise enshrined in the heart of the American identity, and set it to music. As he often is, Ken Jennings was right about this too.
And now, I'm going to take some Ibuprofen and think about my life choices.
* I love a band or artist willing to add subtitles, taglines, em-dashes and full colons in their album titles, they are the polar opposite of the bands who self-title their works and just print them with different colour album art to distinguish them (naming no names).
** I once saw my friend D perform Dragula at a karaoke bar while his partner's very serious father was in the same room as him and that is the most courageous and foolhardy endeavour I might have ever witnessed.
*** I haven's listened to 'Black Man' from Songs In The Key Of Life in a minute and it's the only pro-racial equality song I can think of which makes me feel deeply uncomfortable because of the racist language used in it. Quite the trick.
**** I don't know when we had to demonise sincerity, to make it something to be avoided. It makes me sad that the only way to be is to maintain some kind of aloof detachment from everything we care about, for fear of caring too much.
