The Domestic Terrorist - Hip To be Square

HIP TO BE SQUARE

I don’t know what cool is. Any look at my record collection will tell you that : 1977 was my year Zero, and 1997 my Year Of The Long Knives. (For those of you who don’t follow history, you’ll never know that we’re doomed to repeat it, and other cliches). Anything made before “Never Mind The Bollocks”, and anything made after “Be Here Now” : gone. As if it never existed.

But what I do know is what other people think is cool and what is naff. Not that I listen to anyone else these days, and in fact I never listen to anyone but myself, but what I will tell you is that, I know what people think is ‘naff’ (which is gay slang for seriously unfuckable), and I’ve got most of it.

So let me guide you through at least seven of my serious long-term loves that will never be in fashion ever again.

01. Heavy Metal. No amount of words can do justice to this stuff. Stupid, macho, chest beating RAWK is brilliant.

02. Jackie Chan films prior to 1996. Even though Jackie had been slightly Hollywoodised by appearing in “Cannonball Run II”, he still return to Hong Kong and made works of deathless genius such as “Armour Of God”, “Police Story”, and “Operation Condor” which combine the best of British slapstick, the ballet of King Fu, and the gritty grim reality of The Godfather movies in ninety minutes of subtitled madness that improves dramatically after you’ve been to the pub and had a takeaway curry. And as any purist will tell you, anything after he moved to Hollywood and made “First Strike” (in which he fistfights a shark!), is just lame crap. Kind of like when Dio joined the mighty Black Sabbath or kind of like “Superman IV:Quest For Peace”.

03. Goth. I LOVE Goth. I don’t look like one (I never did, because wearing a black leather neckpiece with spikes on looks so stupid it is stupid, as opposed to so stupid it’s cool), but I know that Goth music, when it takes itself seriously is perhaps one of the highest art forms known to man. For example, The Nefilim’s “Zoon” album – a concept album about an angel becoming mortal for the love of a human that sounds like Slipknot – is possibly the most hilarious album ever made. And I love it seriously even now. And nobody parodied metal quite as subtly as The Sisters Of Mercy did with “Vision Thing”. And nobody made a record as dunderheaded as The Mission’s “Carved In Sand”. I think the reason that record didn’t have a lyric sheet was because the typesetters couldn’t finish the page without collapsing in fits of laughter. And anyone who can sing a line like “hocus-pocus… there’s a ten inch wall through the streets of New York, a shuffling woman with plastic in her hair” is either Bob Dylan or Tommy Cooper.

04. Hawaiian Shirts. Is it just me? Or are the most incredibly tasteless, garish, ugly shirts in the world, incredibly kitsch and cool?

05. Pink Floyd. I know why everyone rags on this lot : incredibly well off Cambridge architects who made a seriously large number of albums, and tried to appear a lot smarter than they actually are. Some people think they sound like Meatloaf, others think they sound like crap, but nobody seems to understand the sheer joy of bombastic stupid guitar solos that last for ten minutes. At least they weren’t Yes, or their offspring cover act, Anderson-Bruford-Wakeman-Howe-Plus-performing-an-evening-of-Yes-Music. Yes, they did tour under that name.

06. Hollywood Shlockbusters. No. Not the ones where you know they’re taking the piss. But the genuine ones where they unwittingly employ every cliché in the world. For example, the cop/assassin/bankrobber called out of retirement to do one last job, the hardnosed cop who doesn’t do things by the book, the agent out to avenge the death of his partner, the superhero with a stupid Achilles Heel (such as a fear of oxygen, or the letter “Y”, or who is blind), the Army Team lost behind enemy lines with the wisecracking Comms officer who realises quickly the value of friendship, or Horror Movies with low budget production values, back projections, and that a Shock Ending is actually Shocking. Shlock that’s not smart enough to realise it’s shlock is genius. For example : The Evil Dead trilogy, Lifeforce (1985), anything by Tobe Hooper after 1982, anything with Dolph Lundgren in except “A View To Kill”, Supergirl, late-period Blaxploitation pics, and anything by John Carpenter after 1982 (excepting “They Live”, which is genius for completely different reasons).

07. When Rock Stars Go Weird. When rock stars take horrendous left turns, make albums unlike anything they’ve ever made before, sell next-to-no copies, and wreck their careers. Often these are, by far, the most representative albums they ever made, as they’ve ditched the stuff that makes them money and made Something To Believe In. For example, Neil Young goes Techno (“Trans“), Moby goes speed metal (“Animal Rights”), The Mission turn into Simply Red (“Masque”), Kylie goes Indie (“Impossible Princess”), U2 go art (“Passengers”), REM go leftfield-glam-rock (“Monster”), and when The Sisters Of Mercy turned into a LA rock metal experiment (“Vision Thing”).

So that’s it. At least seven things I love dearly that nobody else gets. I don’t know exactly what that means – maybe I like rubbish no-one else does, maybe my tastes are just plain weird. I don’t know. But since my earlier missives, you’ll know that I don’t particularly care what other people think. I don’t care if you think it’s naff, or cool, or what, I know this stuff ROCKS. Common sense, taste, and time will try to prove me wrong, but I won’t care, but that’s because when they say they’re right, I know they’re wrong, and that’s alright, because we’re a million strong in these Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, Crazy Nights. It’s Hip To be Square.

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