// Category Archive for: Issues

How Long Until We Have Smell-O-Vision?

By Noreen Sobczyk

Certain sensory things trigger memories instantly. At one time or another each of us has probably heard a song play and been immediately transported through time to some place or person from their past without any conscious effort. Well, scents can do the same thing. Maybe it’s that pot roast and gravy that smells just like the one your Grandma made that gets you feeling all warm and nostalgic? Or mulled cider that reminds you of Halloween? Or maybe it’s something that smells like the Love’s Baby Soft worn by the bitchy popular girl who tortured you at the sleep over? Or the smell of a boys junior high locker room’s socks n’jocks and you think about being laughed at for not being able to climb the rope in gym class? Everyone must have some smell that is unique to themselves and their own past memories, but we must share some in our collective memory banks. Take a look at the list below and see if anything rings a bell.
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What’s Inside a (Super Fan) Girl?

By Margaret Cross

The first time I heard The Cramps, I was a 13-year-old kid living in a very suburban suburb of Cincinnati. It was the summer of 1985, and a friend’s college-age brother played us his cassette tape of Bad Music for Bad People. I made him play it twice more, before he asked me to just go ahead and dub it, already! I did, and spent hours and hours listening to it, and being inexorably pulled into this land of beautifully distorted guitars, a drum beat that would drive a sane person to their knees, and the truly gleeful, terrifying, hopped-up vocals of Lux Interior.

I now believe that some of us are just born Cramped, and that’s how it is. But I’ll take you a journey so you’ll understand what I mean.
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John Lee Hooker, Anthology 50 Years

By J Howell

What can be said about John Lee Hooker that hasn’t been said at least a thousand times before? If you’re somehow unfamiliar with Hooker’s well-deserved “Blues Legend” status, this two-disc compilation isn’t a bad place to start. Hooker was notoriously prolific, recording multiple versions of songs over the years, sometimes under assumed names (but usually laughably close, such as “John Lee Booker”) to avoid contractual snags. Because of Hooker’s prodigious output on so many labels over so many years, assembling a perfect career summary set—especially on just two discs—would be nearly impossible. That said, Anthology 50 Years does a more than adequate, if not-quite-stellar, job of offering an overview of John Lee Hooker’s idiosyncratic style.
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Fear Is A Woman’s Best Friend: Q & A with Deerfrance

Interviewed by Emily Carney

Deerfrance is best known as John Cale’s backup vocalist from 1978 to 1981. However, she is also notable for her own inspired excursions into music, and has been pursuing a brilliant solo career as of late with Extra Virgin Mary.
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Albums In Decline: T.Rex, Iggy Pop, The Ramones

By Christian Lipski

There comes a time in every band’s life when they release the album that represents their commercial and/or critical peak. And then there are the albums that come out after that. Perhaps on their own, the later albums would be popular and appreciated in their own right, but when compared to the more well-known works, they tend to fall short in most fans’ minds. They get passed up in retrospectives if not mocked outright, and they’re rarely on the list to be re-released. But there’s always something to love about them, especially if you bought them new.
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Top Ten Concerts

By Christian Lipski

I’ve been to a few live shows in my life, starting with the Beach Boys in 1983, and there’s nothing like seeing your favorite band doing what they love and giving them that immediate feedback. Recently I was asked what my ten favorite concerts were, and surprisingly that’s not something I’d ever done. It made me look back at all the great live moments I’ve experienced, and that was worth the trip alone. Here’s what I came back with, in no particular order.
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Für Immer: Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft and Neue Deutsche Welle

By Emily Carney

In the late 1970s, post-punk music in Düsseldorf, Germany began to mutate into sounds which were original, energetic, and exciting. Fired up by the music coming from England (and somewhat inspired by more electronic sounds, like Düsseldorf’s own Kraftwerk), one band called Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF) began to synthesize a sound which wasn’t quite rock, wasn’t quite disco, but was innovative and unusual enough to earn them the future sobriquet as the “fathers of EBM” (electronic body music). DAF were the central figures in the musical Neue Deutsche Welle movement (German New Wave, or simply abbreviated as NDW).
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Sex and Smells and Rock and Roll

By James Thurston Davis

I had an extended affair with a member of the Lower Class Brats.
I used to hang out with a bunch of other punk acts. I liked ’em smelly and skinny back then.
No drugs.
—Jaime M., Yelp, San Francisco

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“That Library Smell”

By Jesse Roth

Say that to anyone and they will probably give you a puzzled look.
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A Loving, Lasting Fragrance: Iconic Scents of the Seventies (And Beyond)

By Emily Carney

“I send thee this sweet perfume a fragrance to the fragrant, as one would offer wine to the god of wine.”
—Anonymous

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