Snap Judgment: Beyoncé's 'If I Were a Boy' and 'Single Ladies'

Beyoncé may be a married lady now, but she's still all caught up in the drama of love's first glances and final door slams. It's refreshing that she's staying in character: When artists such as Mary J. Blige start making music about how happy they are with their chubby hubbies, it may be sincere, but it also serves the function of feeding the tabloids. Beyoncé and her Hova have always kept business and pleasure separate, which imparts dignity to their relationship -- and lets her be an artist first, a personality second.

Beyoncé's emotional reserve also allows for hits that still appeal to her core fan base of independent women. "Irreplaceable" was a masterpiece of that ilk, the finger-wagging summation of mercenary, "Sex and the City"-style post-feminism. That song made Beyoncé pop's Chairwoman of the Board, as worldly wise and merciless about love as Sinatra was in the wee small hours of the morning.

Her new club banger, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)," elaborates on "Irreplaceable's" theme of love as sport, if not war; sounding a lot like a Destiny's Child song, it has Beyoncé doing call-and-response with her backup singers over a rump-shaking beat provided by The-Dream and Tricky Stewart. More than most female singers, Beyoncé understands the funky art of singing rhythmically, and this is a prime example.

My hubby Eric and I got into an argument about T.I. driving back from the Neil Diamond concert the other night. (I know, it's not typical to mix the Jewish Elvis and Atlanta's illest, but that's the poptimist life we lead.) "Paper Trail," Tip's sixth album, was in the car stereo, and we were admiring the shiny-sharp production from Drumma Boy, Toomp, Just Blaze and others, which sets up the rapper's coolly commanding flow on hit after soon-to-be hit -- the album's already produced three Billboard Top 100 winners, and it's been out only a week.

Foremost among T.I.'s current successes is "Whatever You Like," pop-rap's latest ode to throwing money around. The sing-song rap was produced by Jim Jonsin, who also coproduced Lil' Wayne's smash "Lollipop"; like that song, it's a rough guy's come-on, deceptively light in tone but with an undertow that represents its hero's driving need for conquest. With five nonconsecutive weeks topping the charts, it's T.I.'s most successful single ever.

It also just might be the perfect soundtrack for a nation in an economic tailspin.

What do Jennifer Hudson and David Cook have in common, besides attention-grabbing new singles and an "American Idol" past? They're famous -- fashioned into celebrities before our eyes within reality television's metamorphosis machine -- and yet vividly human, with edges most "Idol" alums lack. Their charisma comes from a rare combination of assertive vocal talent and an underdog mystique.

You root for Cook and Hudson because they are Little Engines That Can: imperfect, homey people with extraordinary gifts. Cook, triumphing over the disturbingly adorable David Archuleta last season, came off as the show's first truly accidental winner, a fashion-clueless barkeep-for-life whose competitive streak developed in tension with his desire to maintain a nerdy notion of rocker cool. And "Idol" turned Hudson into everyone's favorite outsider. Eliminated from the show far too soon, she found her role of a lifetime as Effie in "Dreamgirls" -- an earthy accidental rebel whose beauty radiated from her throat and her heart, and whose success was a form of Everywoman's revenge.

When these singers really let go, their voices smash through the limits imposed by their bodies and personalities, making them golden. That's what we once wanted from great singers -- fat or scrawny, pimpled or aging, they could blow away our prejudices. Imperfection is highly discouraged in corporate pop now, but for Hudson and Cook, it helps; more glamor would dampen the wonder of their performances. That's why it's sad to encounter so much airbrushing in the new musical products meant to secure their places as pop stars.

And so we awaken to a new Britney Spears single (here's the best version we've found so far on Youtube) to distract us from the collapse of yet another major financial institution. (Shout out to all my peeps in the "Washington Mutual" state!) "Womanizer" is just the shot of Jolt Cola pop fans need right now: It's mechanical as heck, sure, and predictable too, but somehow it still draws you in. More like grabs your collar, forces you down onto a cane-back chair and yanks you in. Oh, wait, that's the choreography for the upcoming video.

The good: Retro-futurism takes a roller coaster ride via the snappy staccato beats crafted by the young Atlanta-based production team the Outsydas. It's clean and contemporary but also invokes the quick-witted style of vocal groups like the Andrews Sisters -- a style Brit's rival, Christina Aguilera, has mined to great success before. The highly manipulated vocal complements Brit's Mississippi Valley Girl diction; though she's been turned into a robot (again), she actually sounds engaged. And the lyric, about the kind of girl power that's focused on besting one obnoxious man, is also vintage and contemporary at the same time -- more feminism as individualism, which we all know is hot at the moment.

The bad: This song most emphatically does not swing. The very things that pull in a listener -- the song's jerky repetitiveness, the catchy staccato elements, Britney's voice pushed against your ear -- are going to get really irritating after three days of this song being everywhere.

The conclusion: Britney's back. She actually seems to be awake this time. This is only the beginning.

What do you think of "Womanizer"?

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Achim Scheidemann / EPA

Russell Brand is a bad, bad boy. Thank the punk rock saints for that! As the English comic and sole male inheritor of Amy Winehouse's hairstyle laid waste to good taste as the host of Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards, somewhere in heaven's dark alley, Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious shared a laugh.

Brand's banter, overflowing with outré political statements (such as calling George Bush a "retarded cowboy"), juvenile sex jokes and relentless mockery of the well-groomed pop stars surrounding him, was totally, deliriously in the spirit of transgressive rock and roll. In fact, it was mild by comparison to the Sex Pistols showering British television host Bill Grundy with obscenities in 1976, or the Ramones recording the anti-Reagan "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" nearly a decade later. That's the funny thing about the razzing Brand is currently receiving all over the blogosphere -- nobody seems to remember when rockers were supposed to rattle the jewelry of the folks who attend glittery galas.

But subversive rockers are out of favor right now, with hip-hop and R&B a more reliable source of edginess. Artists in those genres enjoy the insider perks of commercial success -- T-Pain rode the VMAs' red carpet on an elephant, for goodness sake, and Lil' Wayne, who's recorded anti-Bush raps in the past, celebrated his Top 40 triumph with unlikely collaborations -- first he was paired with bland songbird Leona Lewis, and then joined Kid Rock for "Summertime," a song partially based on the unofficial Confederate anthem "Sweet Home Alabama." (Why has no one picked up on the weird compromise of Weezy, a black Southerner, doing that?)

I regret not making it to the Twin Cities to see Rage Against the Machine play the Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, sending its mighty roar over the Mississippi River toward Sarah Palin. But we do have the Internet, letting us in on other people's once-in-a-lifetime moments. Here's one:

That's Rage, getting down with a megaphone after being denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held Tuesday on the Minnesota State Capitol's Upper Mall to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

T.I.'s 'Whatever You Like': The anthem of the bailout

My hubby Eric and I got into an argument about T.I. driving back from the Neil Diamond concert the other night. (I know, it's not typical to mix the Jewish Elvis and Atlanta's illest, but that's the poptimist life we lead.) "Paper Trail," Tip's sixth album, was in the car stereo, and we were admiring the shiny-sharp production from Drumma Boy, Toomp, Just Blaze and others, which sets up the rapper's coolly commanding flow on hit after soon-to-be hit -- the album's already produced three Billboard Top 100 winners, and it's been out only a week.

Foremost among T.I.'s current successes is "Whatever You Like," pop-rap's latest ode to throwing money around. The sing-song rap was produced by Jim Jonsin, who also coproduced Lil' Wayne's smash "Lollipop"; like that song, it's a rough guy's come-on, deceptively light in tone but with an undertow that represents its hero's driving need for conquest. With five nonconsecutive weeks topping the charts, it's T.I.'s most successful single ever.

It also just might be the perfect soundtrack for a nation in an economic tailspin.

What do Jennifer Hudson and David Cook have in common, besides attention-grabbing new singles and an "American Idol" past? They're famous -- fashioned into celebrities before our eyes within reality television's metamorphosis machine -- and yet vividly human, with edges most "Idol" alums lack. Their charisma comes from a rare combination of assertive vocal talent and an underdog mystique.

You root for Cook and Hudson because they are Little Engines That Can: imperfect, homey people with extraordinary gifts. Cook, triumphing over the disturbingly adorable David Archuleta last season, came off as the show's first truly accidental winner, a fashion-clueless barkeep-for-life whose competitive streak developed in tension with his desire to maintain a nerdy notion of rocker cool. And "Idol" turned Hudson into everyone's favorite outsider. Eliminated from the show far too soon, she found her role of a lifetime as Effie in "Dreamgirls" -- an earthy accidental rebel whose beauty radiated from her throat and her heart, and whose success was a form of Everywoman's revenge.

When these singers really let go, their voices smash through the limits imposed by their bodies and personalities, making them golden. That's what we once wanted from great singers -- fat or scrawny, pimpled or aging, they could blow away our prejudices. Imperfection is highly discouraged in corporate pop now, but for Hudson and Cook, it helps; more glamor would dampen the wonder of their performances. That's why it's sad to encounter so much airbrushing in the new musical products meant to secure their places as pop stars.

And so we awaken to a new Britney Spears single (here's the best version we've found so far on Youtube) to distract us from the collapse of yet another major financial institution. (Shout out to all my peeps in the "Washington Mutual" state!) "Womanizer" is just the shot of Jolt Cola pop fans need right now: It's mechanical as heck, sure, and predictable too, but somehow it still draws you in. More like grabs your collar, forces you down onto a cane-back chair and yanks you in. Oh, wait, that's the choreography for the upcoming video.

The good: Retro-futurism takes a roller coaster ride via the snappy staccato beats crafted by the young Atlanta-based production team the Outsydas. It's clean and contemporary but also invokes the quick-witted style of vocal groups like the Andrews Sisters -- a style Brit's rival, Christina Aguilera, has mined to great success before. The highly manipulated vocal complements Brit's Mississippi Valley Girl diction; though she's been turned into a robot (again), she actually sounds engaged. And the lyric, about the kind of girl power that's focused on besting one obnoxious man, is also vintage and contemporary at the same time -- more feminism as individualism, which we all know is hot at the moment.

The bad: This song most emphatically does not swing. The very things that pull in a listener -- the song's jerky repetitiveness, the catchy staccato elements, Britney's voice pushed against your ear -- are going to get really irritating after three days of this song being everywhere.

The conclusion: Britney's back. She actually seems to be awake this time. This is only the beginning.

What do you think of "Womanizer"?

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Achim Scheidemann / EPA

Russell Brand is a bad, bad boy. Thank the punk rock saints for that! As the English comic and sole male inheritor of Amy Winehouse's hairstyle laid waste to good taste as the host of Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards, somewhere in heaven's dark alley, Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious shared a laugh.

Brand's banter, overflowing with outré political statements (such as calling George Bush a "retarded cowboy"), juvenile sex jokes and relentless mockery of the well-groomed pop stars surrounding him, was totally, deliriously in the spirit of transgressive rock and roll. In fact, it was mild by comparison to the Sex Pistols showering British television host Bill Grundy with obscenities in 1976, or the Ramones recording the anti-Reagan "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" nearly a decade later. That's the funny thing about the razzing Brand is currently receiving all over the blogosphere -- nobody seems to remember when rockers were supposed to rattle the jewelry of the folks who attend glittery galas.

But subversive rockers are out of favor right now, with hip-hop and R&B a more reliable source of edginess. Artists in those genres enjoy the insider perks of commercial success -- T-Pain rode the VMAs' red carpet on an elephant, for goodness sake, and Lil' Wayne, who's recorded anti-Bush raps in the past, celebrated his Top 40 triumph with unlikely collaborations -- first he was paired with bland songbird Leona Lewis, and then joined Kid Rock for "Summertime," a song partially based on the unofficial Confederate anthem "Sweet Home Alabama." (Why has no one picked up on the weird compromise of Weezy, a black Southerner, doing that?)

I regret not making it to the Twin Cities to see Rage Against the Machine play the Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, sending its mighty roar over the Mississippi River toward Sarah Palin. But we do have the Internet, letting us in on other people's once-in-a-lifetime moments. Here's one:

That's Rage, getting down with a megaphone after being denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held Tuesday on the Minnesota State Capitol's Upper Mall to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Jennifer Hudson, David Cook and the problem of big, empty voices

What do Jennifer Hudson and David Cook have in common, besides attention-grabbing new singles and an "American Idol" past? They're famous -- fashioned into celebrities before our eyes within reality television's metamorphosis machine -- and yet vividly human, with edges most "Idol" alums lack. Their charisma comes from a rare combination of assertive vocal talent and an underdog mystique.

You root for Cook and Hudson because they are Little Engines That Can: imperfect, homey people with extraordinary gifts. Cook, triumphing over the disturbingly adorable David Archuleta last season, came off as the show's first truly accidental winner, a fashion-clueless barkeep-for-life whose competitive streak developed in tension with his desire to maintain a nerdy notion of rocker cool. And "Idol" turned Hudson into everyone's favorite outsider. Eliminated from the show far too soon, she found her role of a lifetime as Effie in "Dreamgirls" -- an earthy accidental rebel whose beauty radiated from her throat and her heart, and whose success was a form of Everywoman's revenge.

When these singers really let go, their voices smash through the limits imposed by their bodies and personalities, making them golden. That's what we once wanted from great singers -- fat or scrawny, pimpled or aging, they could blow away our prejudices. Imperfection is highly discouraged in corporate pop now, but for Hudson and Cook, it helps; more glamor would dampen the wonder of their performances. That's why it's sad to encounter so much airbrushing in the new musical products meant to secure their places as pop stars.

And so we awaken to a new Britney Spears single (here's the best version we've found so far on Youtube) to distract us from the collapse of yet another major financial institution. (Shout out to all my peeps in the "Washington Mutual" state!) "Womanizer" is just the shot of Jolt Cola pop fans need right now: It's mechanical as heck, sure, and predictable too, but somehow it still draws you in. More like grabs your collar, forces you down onto a cane-back chair and yanks you in. Oh, wait, that's the choreography for the upcoming video.

The good: Retro-futurism takes a roller coaster ride via the snappy staccato beats crafted by the young Atlanta-based production team the Outsydas. It's clean and contemporary but also invokes the quick-witted style of vocal groups like the Andrews Sisters -- a style Brit's rival, Christina Aguilera, has mined to great success before. The highly manipulated vocal complements Brit's Mississippi Valley Girl diction; though she's been turned into a robot (again), she actually sounds engaged. And the lyric, about the kind of girl power that's focused on besting one obnoxious man, is also vintage and contemporary at the same time -- more feminism as individualism, which we all know is hot at the moment.

The bad: This song most emphatically does not swing. The very things that pull in a listener -- the song's jerky repetitiveness, the catchy staccato elements, Britney's voice pushed against your ear -- are going to get really irritating after three days of this song being everywhere.

The conclusion: Britney's back. She actually seems to be awake this time. This is only the beginning.

What do you think of "Womanizer"?

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Achim Scheidemann / EPA

Russell Brand is a bad, bad boy. Thank the punk rock saints for that! As the English comic and sole male inheritor of Amy Winehouse's hairstyle laid waste to good taste as the host of Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards, somewhere in heaven's dark alley, Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious shared a laugh.

Brand's banter, overflowing with outré political statements (such as calling George Bush a "retarded cowboy"), juvenile sex jokes and relentless mockery of the well-groomed pop stars surrounding him, was totally, deliriously in the spirit of transgressive rock and roll. In fact, it was mild by comparison to the Sex Pistols showering British television host Bill Grundy with obscenities in 1976, or the Ramones recording the anti-Reagan "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" nearly a decade later. That's the funny thing about the razzing Brand is currently receiving all over the blogosphere -- nobody seems to remember when rockers were supposed to rattle the jewelry of the folks who attend glittery galas.

But subversive rockers are out of favor right now, with hip-hop and R&B a more reliable source of edginess. Artists in those genres enjoy the insider perks of commercial success -- T-Pain rode the VMAs' red carpet on an elephant, for goodness sake, and Lil' Wayne, who's recorded anti-Bush raps in the past, celebrated his Top 40 triumph with unlikely collaborations -- first he was paired with bland songbird Leona Lewis, and then joined Kid Rock for "Summertime," a song partially based on the unofficial Confederate anthem "Sweet Home Alabama." (Why has no one picked up on the weird compromise of Weezy, a black Southerner, doing that?)

I regret not making it to the Twin Cities to see Rage Against the Machine play the Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, sending its mighty roar over the Mississippi River toward Sarah Palin. But we do have the Internet, letting us in on other people's once-in-a-lifetime moments. Here's one:

That's Rage, getting down with a megaphone after being denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held Tuesday on the Minnesota State Capitol's Upper Mall to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Snap judgment on Britney Spears' 'Womanizer'

And so we awaken to a new Britney Spears single (here's the best version we've found so far on Youtube) to distract us from the collapse of yet another major financial institution. (Shout out to all my peeps in the "Washington Mutual" state!) "Womanizer" is just the shot of Jolt Cola pop fans need right now: It's mechanical as heck, sure, and predictable too, but somehow it still draws you in. More like grabs your collar, forces you down onto a cane-back chair and yanks you in. Oh, wait, that's the choreography for the upcoming video.

The good: Retro-futurism takes a roller coaster ride via the snappy staccato beats crafted by the young Atlanta-based production team the Outsydas. It's clean and contemporary but also invokes the quick-witted style of vocal groups like the Andrews Sisters -- a style Brit's rival, Christina Aguilera, has mined to great success before. The highly manipulated vocal complements Brit's Mississippi Valley Girl diction; though she's been turned into a robot (again), she actually sounds engaged. And the lyric, about the kind of girl power that's focused on besting one obnoxious man, is also vintage and contemporary at the same time -- more feminism as individualism, which we all know is hot at the moment.

The bad: This song most emphatically does not swing. The very things that pull in a listener -- the song's jerky repetitiveness, the catchy staccato elements, Britney's voice pushed against your ear -- are going to get really irritating after three days of this song being everywhere.

The conclusion: Britney's back. She actually seems to be awake this time. This is only the beginning.

What do you think of "Womanizer"?

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Achim Scheidemann / EPA

Russell Brand is a bad, bad boy. Thank the punk rock saints for that! As the English comic and sole male inheritor of Amy Winehouse's hairstyle laid waste to good taste as the host of Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards, somewhere in heaven's dark alley, Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious shared a laugh.

Brand's banter, overflowing with outré political statements (such as calling George Bush a "retarded cowboy"), juvenile sex jokes and relentless mockery of the well-groomed pop stars surrounding him, was totally, deliriously in the spirit of transgressive rock and roll. In fact, it was mild by comparison to the Sex Pistols showering British television host Bill Grundy with obscenities in 1976, or the Ramones recording the anti-Reagan "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" nearly a decade later. That's the funny thing about the razzing Brand is currently receiving all over the blogosphere -- nobody seems to remember when rockers were supposed to rattle the jewelry of the folks who attend glittery galas.

But subversive rockers are out of favor right now, with hip-hop and R&B a more reliable source of edginess. Artists in those genres enjoy the insider perks of commercial success -- T-Pain rode the VMAs' red carpet on an elephant, for goodness sake, and Lil' Wayne, who's recorded anti-Bush raps in the past, celebrated his Top 40 triumph with unlikely collaborations -- first he was paired with bland songbird Leona Lewis, and then joined Kid Rock for "Summertime," a song partially based on the unofficial Confederate anthem "Sweet Home Alabama." (Why has no one picked up on the weird compromise of Weezy, a black Southerner, doing that?)

I regret not making it to the Twin Cities to see Rage Against the Machine play the Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, sending its mighty roar over the Mississippi River toward Sarah Palin. But we do have the Internet, letting us in on other people's once-in-a-lifetime moments. Here's one:

That's Rage, getting down with a megaphone after being denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held Tuesday on the Minnesota State Capitol's Upper Mall to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Russell Brand, the Jo Bros and sex at the VMAs

Russell Brand is a bad, bad boy. Thank the punk rock saints for that! As the English comic and sole male inheritor of Amy Winehouse's hairstyle laid waste to good taste as the host of Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards, somewhere in heaven's dark alley, Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious shared a laugh.

Brand's banter, overflowing with outré political statements (such as calling George Bush a "retarded cowboy"), juvenile sex jokes and relentless mockery of the well-groomed pop stars surrounding him, was totally, deliriously in the spirit of transgressive rock and roll. In fact, it was mild by comparison to the Sex Pistols showering British television host Bill Grundy with obscenities in 1976, or the Ramones recording the anti-Reagan "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" nearly a decade later. That's the funny thing about the razzing Brand is currently receiving all over the blogosphere -- nobody seems to remember when rockers were supposed to rattle the jewelry of the folks who attend glittery galas.

But subversive rockers are out of favor right now, with hip-hop and R&B a more reliable source of edginess. Artists in those genres enjoy the insider perks of commercial success -- T-Pain rode the VMAs' red carpet on an elephant, for goodness sake, and Lil' Wayne, who's recorded anti-Bush raps in the past, celebrated his Top 40 triumph with unlikely collaborations -- first he was paired with bland songbird Leona Lewis, and then joined Kid Rock for "Summertime," a song partially based on the unofficial Confederate anthem "Sweet Home Alabama." (Why has no one picked up on the weird compromise of Weezy, a black Southerner, doing that?)

I regret not making it to the Twin Cities to see Rage Against the Machine play the Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, sending its mighty roar over the Mississippi River toward Sarah Palin. But we do have the Internet, letting us in on other people's once-in-a-lifetime moments. Here's one:

That's Rage, getting down with a megaphone after being denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held Tuesday on the Minnesota State Capitol's Upper Mall to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Rage Against the Machine in Minnesota and the state of political pop

I regret not making it to the Twin Cities to see Rage Against the Machine play the Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, sending its mighty roar over the Mississippi River toward Sarah Palin. But we do have the Internet, letting us in on other people's once-in-a-lifetime moments. Here's one:

That's Rage, getting down with a megaphone after being denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held Tuesday on the Minnesota State Capitol's Upper Mall to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Critic's Notebook: The failure of Ludacris' pro-Bama song was inevitable

I highly recommend New York City blogger and radio dude Jay Smooth’s commentary on last week’s non-confrontation between Ludacris and Barack Obama. Jay’s view is that the incident -- which involved the rapper-actor offering up a pro-Bama song that the candidate (through his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton) deemed too offensive for use -– is a “Ludacris problem,” pure and simple, and that the rapper’s failure to give Obama what he needs simply distracts from the larger, much more positive relationship the candidate has with hip-hop culture, and vice versa.

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Critic’s Notebook: Katy Perry never ‘Kissed a Girl’

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Critic’s Notebook: On Pitchfork and kingmaking

Yesterday, August Brown offered an impassioned take-down of Pitchfork's snarky "review" of the new Black Kids LP. For me, the whole little mess raises questions beyond whether a snapshot of a pair of pugs -- one black, the other white -- is an effective emblem for artistic failure. (Though I'd like to get some of my friends who have written on minstrelsy and racialized pop imagery to weigh in on Pitchfork's decision to use those particular animals to represent an interracial band).

I'm not quibbling with turnabout reviews, or the ratings drop from 8.4 to 3.3 from the Black Kids' first recorded effort to the band's second. Critics often thrill to a young band's first, rough outbursts only to question its (slightly) more polished later efforts. And though I'm with Neil Young's dad in "Powderfinger" in saying, "Numbers add up to nothing," readers do respond to scores and stars. Making a statement that way is a time-honored critical gesture -- an easy middle finger raised.

What interests me about this tiny Black Kids backlash is the one word that accompanies the picture:

"Sorry :-\"

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Sub Pop 20: That loud-soft-loud formula still works

Back in the so-called grunge era, rock songs often followed a pattern: soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, repeat. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, then, that the first day of the weekend festival in Seattle celebrating 20 years of Sub Pop -- the record label that helped define that moment, and American indie rock in general -- was structured like a giant version of one of those pulse-quickening anthems. Quiet sets gave way to torrential bouts of noise, then settled back into peace and melodicism before exploding again.

The formula not only beautifully organized 10 hours of music by 13 acts, but it also added up to a revelation about Sub Pop’s remarkable run on the indie scene. As the day unfolded, two streams of music formed, complementing each other like two parts of the same song.

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Preschool of rock: Ralph’s World versus No Age

This weekend, we conducted an experiment on our child. But there's no reason to call Child Protective Services, unless you think noise rock is a toxic substance. We'd already had a kid's music outing planned to see our old fave Ralph's World at the Echoplex. When we found out that No Age would be playing on the Getty plaza the night before, we thought we'd see which band did a better job hitting a 4-year-old's joy button.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Joe Carducci gives us some truth

Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Arthur Magazine and Redoubt Press present Joe Carducci reading from selected works, including his new book, "Enter Naomi," at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Carducci (pictured at left) also guests on KXLU radio's "Stray Pop" program tonight at 11; stream it here.

Why should you care? Here's why:

In 1991, Joe Carducci published a massive, brilliant, stupid, exhaustive, exhausting book called "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," which set out a theory of what mattered in rock music that inspired many and infuriated more. Since he was office manager/utility infielder at SST, one of the key labels defining American punk, Carducci had more right than most to spout on about the importance of bands like Husker Du and Black Flag.

I hated that book: Carducci came off as a macho libertarian in love with some romantic idea of the working class, who thought male bonding was the key ingredient in music-making, that establishment rock critics were namby-pamby liberals and that anything aimed at the marketplace (i.e., at girls) was hopelessly corrupt. Worst of all were rock bands with pop pretensions. I was a girl who liked U2 and loved reading rock criticism. Carducci and I were not bound to get along.

Now that I'm less defensive about strong thinkers whose viewpoints contradict my own, I can see the value in Carducci's impassioned embrace of the miraculous transformations that happen when a few sweaty dudes -- and, Carducci acknowledges, possibly a woman or two -- make loud music together. I dip into "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" (which he revised in 1995, and published in a third edition on Redoubt Press in 2005) when I need a shot of provocative thinking or a great description of garage rock.

What brought me back to Carducci, though, was an online tribute he wrote in 2005 (still accessible here) about a woman who never made music, though she loved punk and played a role in its glory days.

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Greg Laswell’s gorgeous little song about death

The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)

Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.

First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.

Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.

Stream: High and Low

An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.

Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Joseph Llanes

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin

Critic’s Notebook: A half-century of Jello

For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.

Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.

When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.

The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.

Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.

He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.

Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.

-- Ann Powers

Photo by Erin Lubin