Melt Banana--

Charlie

(A-Zap 001)

I Read this pretty lousy book while I was out in San Fran a while ago.

It was this Raygun-style, hard-to-read but vibrantly-colored book on Punk Rock. The author spends the last page mewling about how John Lydon was a big star, but a big punk traitor now, and about how he (Lydon) threw a beer at his (the author's) head. And this little putz, this (dare I say it? oh, but he is) nudnik gets all self-righteous — you sold us out, Johnny Rotten, say it ain't so, Johnny! — and asks the question.

"Did Sid die for this?"

I'm only going to say this one more time, and then we can move on to more important, edifying conversations, such as "Who gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut whether the NBA ever gets its fanbase back." And the one thing I will say for the last time is Sid Vicious died because he was a junkie! End of argument! He did not die to take on the sins of the world, he died because he tried to take all the scag in the world! He did not die to make a statement! In almost any case, the only statement death can make is that everyone bats .000 in the end! He didn't die for any reason other than that he was a stupid, untalented horse-hoover! Did Darby Crash die for us? How about Johnny Thunders? Charlie Ondrake, the guy from Unsane? Fucking Janis Joplin?

These people are not important, the music is important, how they made us feel was important. Ultimately, punk was about an end to a bloated system of starfucking. The best of them were spastic marionnettes intent on erasing what had been previously the most important part of any message: the name (read: virtuoso five-minute guitar solo about the navel) of the messenger. So if I hear anyone spout off some Rock Sociology 101 crap about how romantic these ugly young corpses are, I'm gonna slip 'em a Rohypnol, break their fingers and toss 'em in an alley off of Skid Row, so they can find out how romantic punk can really be.

If you want to get romantic about punk and its myriad of possibilities, let's just focus on the stuff that’s out now, because it's still out there, and I don't mean revisionism either. All y'all what read these here pages know I've got a teenage crush on Chris Thompson (Circus Lupus, Monorchid, Skull Control) and that's one lineage of what I’m talking about. Another one is some of the weirder electronic stuff, Mike Paradinas, Richard James. . . (Alec Empire I don't know about, but I just wish he'd keep his mouth shut). A third is Japanese and that's where, say, John Zorn's jazz-core and Melt Banana fit in. They had an album a couple of years ago called Scratch or Stitch what got produced by Jim "The Arty Albini" O'Rourke which was aces and now they got a new one called Charlie which, as well as being a mother is nothing but Musical Word Salad.

This album is all about possibilities. For example, is it possible that the band has any control over what they're doing? All of Charlie sounds like they put a really tight hardcore band in a large box with three DATs and fifty cats and then shook the box really hard. So, to answer the question, all control has been lost and they're about to explode because there's so much music coming through them at once. They just don't have time to play just one song at a time! And they certainly don't have the time to tell you patiently what it all means. So it falls upon the listener to connect the dots that the band left behind.

Or even better, not to and just join them in the avalanche.

Personally, I find it impossible to do anything while listening to it other than sprain every joint from shoudler to phalange trying to air-guitar along. Which looks like solo moshing. Which is a very punk thing to do. At least while I'm doing that I'm not thinking.

If that sounds hard to listen to you're right, it's punk with a capital 'P' and it's an iceberg made of gasoline on fire between the ears but so is The Waste Land. If you can't get past the first song (turntables spun backwards just because, uh, they can, while the guitarist attacks his instrument with a sap at just the right time and the vocalist starts actually shrinking and she is not happy about it one bit) don't feel bad, just put the album down.

You won't have failed anyone important, not me or you or even Sid Vicious, who in actuality did not die but plays bass for any number of Lookout! label bands.

It'll be a shame if you do because I think Charlie is one of the most joyful rackets in recent memory, but one man's noise is really just another man's noise. The only people you'll be failing, punk, are the purists (read: the classicists), who are all trapped in amber and who can all go to blazes anyway.

— T. Magill