Dear Friends,
What a day of travel yesterday.
After leaving the cabin, we breezed through New Mexico and hit some pretty good rain outside of Santa Fe. It cooled off to 65 degrees on the road between Santa Fe and Las Vegas, NM.
Our day was pretty quiet but Liam and I had some great conversation while listening to music for the first half of our drive. I checked out a podcast and put on The Gunslinger by Stephen King for the second half. Liam took a nap.
It was definitely cool to see Colorado Springs again.We drove through the Garden of the Gods after dinner and enjoyed seeing it at dusk. This morning we will visit an old friend and then go see where my grandparents lived before heading towards Denver and then Lincoln, NE.
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I’ve never been to Nebraska. I think I mentioned this the other day, but how in the heck should I know? After a full day of being on the road, things change in a person’s brain. Either way, it will be a new experience for me today and I’m stoked about it.
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It’s also TQ’s birthday. She’s the big 18. I can’t believe she is technically an adult today. It seems like just yesterday that I was carrying her around and making up songs on the guitar for her. She used to seem to love it when I would play guitar for her while she was in her little swing.
I’ve been blessed with four daughters in my life but having been able to be there for her for 18 years has been incredibly rewarding to me. Teresa has a huge chunk of my heart. I think she always will.
I wish I could be with her today, but we’ve been apart on her birthday due to travel before. At very least, I’m on my way and we’ll celebrate when I arrive in Maine.
I love my little TQ. My bean.
*****
Rapeman is my favorite Steve Albini project from back in the day. As much as some of the Big Black stuff is amazing, it’s Rey Washam’s drums and David Wm. Sims’ bass that sets Rapeman apart. To put it succinctly, the three of them created a formidable fucking band.
It was in the early 90s that I discovered them, some three or four years after they had disbanded and Sims went on the Jesus Lizard and Washam started rocking out with Helios Creed, Ministry, Lard, and the wonderful Daddy Longhead. It is an understatement to say there is pedigree when it comes to Rapeman.
Two Nuns and a Pack Mule is the only full-length they put out and it is a barn burner.
The version I have on CD also contains their first release, the Budd EP, so there is even more flavor to go around. It packs a wallop right off the bat, too.
“Steak and Black Onions” could have easily been a Big Black song, but then you realize there is a human being playing the drums. That human being is probably the greatest drummer in the noise/post-punk/heavy music world. Washam pounds the shit out of the drums and comes up with amazing beats.
The combination of Washam and Sims is just devastating and then you add Albini’s buzzsaw guitar and ‘angry man’ vocals and it is just perfect. I remember being so stoked when I finally found the CD. I had been looking for a while. In fact, now that I think of it, I think it might have been a gift from my friend, Alex.
Either way, I was happy as a little clam to have it in my possession and listened to it often. It was definitely an influence on what I wanted to sound like in the early days of Hillbilly, but we never really got too close to this. Ciarilino’s guitar style was decidedly different from Albini and I wasn’t even close (nor am I still) to being in Sims’ league on bass.
I’ve already gushed enough about the drums, but “Up Beat” is a good example of how powerful Washam can be. When I listen to the song, I feel like the band is trying force the song into my body and won’t take no for an answer Hence the name of the band, I suppose.
As a person who worked hard to stop sexual violence for much of my professional career, I am not a huge fan of the band name, but I also understand they were thumbing their nose at the music world establishment and not advocating for rape. I’m no stranger to belligerent band names. I suppose, in a way, Pinky Tuscadero’s White Knuckle Assfuck is probably even more offensive to most.
A song like “Kim Gordon’s Panties” is another good example of how to create something that has an almost beautiful, yet noisy sound, that will also piss people off because of the name. Nowadays, you can’t really expect to get away with a song title like this and it wasn’t much different in 1988. Either way, though I love this song. It sounds so great.
Dissonance is fun to play with and listening to a band like Rapeman just let me know that it is quite all right to go for it. Speaking of dissonance, the cover of ZZ Top’s “Just Got Paid” is noisy and kick ass. When I first heard it I decided I would be fine if I never heard the original again and I happen to like ZZ’s version a lot.
“Trouser Minnow” is a hell of a lot of fun, too. Entertaining as fuck and the way Albini switches gender roles in the lyrics is brilliant. The guy was really good at fucking with people and why wouldn’t excel at it when you had such a bad ass rhythm section.
It’s too bad that Rapeman never got to have another day in the sun. I bet they could have come up with three or four more great records. I mean, all three dudes went on to make some great, great music, but a little bit more from them as a unit would have been nice.
All killer and no filler. Rapeman for the win today.
*****
See you tomorrow.
What is up with that white car on the right?