Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Punks, Dogs, Soldiers, Vader

Seeing the band the Baghdaddios on Saturday night not only afforded me the opportunity to meet a conservative member of the band Beauty School Dropouts but led to the odd experience of me popping outside the club to retrieve Baghdaddios leader Kenn Rowell so that he wouldn’t miss a song being dedicated to him by the band RewBee, only to find that the song turned out to be called “You Suck” — but I am assured he wasn’t being insulted.  (I wouldn’t want to see RewBee anger Kenn’s impressive amazonian bodybuilder girlfriend, either.)  An additional good moment: the Hormones’ hardcore version of the “Science Fiction” opening song from Rocky Horror.

All this is a reminder that I should focus a bit more on actual punk in September, as we approach October’s release of my “Conservatism for Punks” essay in the volume Proud to Be Right (or PBR, as you Williamsburg-types should start calling it).  As Bono said back in the old-timey days of 2003, when obscenity on TV caused legal scandals: “Keep fooking oop the system!”

I think I may have hastily passed up a chance to toy with the system the other day, by the way, when I got a robocall (somehow defying the Do Not Call list, as non-profits can) saying merely: “This is Survey 2010!  Do you own a small dog?”  Saying no caused it to hang up, though perhaps I should have investigated further by saying yes.  Surely many people will do precisely that.  Then again, I never lie, not even to robots.

Two imperial notes before we exit this blog’s troubled and anemic “Month of Imperialism,” though:

•They’re planning a 3D movie about The Battle of Midway, arguably the largest battle of all time, and one of the most historically significant.  Take that, Japan, with all your stupid manga!

•And speaking of old-timey imperial battles, Dimitri Cavalli notes this silent-movie-ized version of the climactic battle from The Empire Strikes Back.  I can’t end on a more fitting note than that.  I’m not saying I shouldn’t, mind you, just can’t.

4 comments:

Nick said...

Wow,

I can’t believe you know Kenn! He’s a pal of mine from years back. We both worked at EMI records, in the royalties department. I have been to more Baghdaddios shows than most.

Todd Seavey said...

The grand pattern is beginning to emerge. Soon, I shall marshal my forces, and the Fifth World will dawn.

Dawn said...

I can’t believe you know Kenn either! How do you know him? I commissioned an article on him by Caren Lissner when I was editing the News’ “Big Town, Big Heart” feature. I also wrote about his band for New York Press, back in ‘95, when they had their fun anthem “The Stupidest Man in Nyack.”

Todd Seavey said...

This question(er) answers itself: you introduced me to him once. Coincidentally (or via the various fine social filters that shape our lives to a greater degree than we normally stop to track), I saw a Baghdaddios sticker tonight on the bar of Cha Cha’s at Coney Island, where I attended a rockabilly concert and burlesque/sideshow, featuring the apparent “thalidomide baby” named the Illustrated Penguin and other wonders.