Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

          Act Two opens with Hood's “Let There Be Rock,” which not only alludes to AC/DC's song of the same name but addresses how both Betamax Guillotine and Hood grew up in the shadows of great bands. While he never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, he lists the bands he did see, while the band works up a rock frenzy. Like most songs that purport to introduce the power of rock music, “Let There Be Rock” attempts to be a blistering example of the form, yet Hood's clever, yet straightforward, lyrics temper it.               The narrator could be any young music fan growing up in America during the 1970s, listening to music, doing drugs, and drinking to excess. He drops acid at Blue Oyster Cult, is pulled over with weed and booze, drinks vodka and almost dies. He juxtaposes each binge with his experiences seeing classic bands. Both scenarios are equally important to his future quest at being a rock god, or at least, writing about...

I first heard Grant Hart, who died on September 13, 2017 at the tragically young age of 56, on   Hüsker Dü ' s Candy Apple Grey , the band's underrated and oft-maligned major label debut from 1986. As a fan of Bob Mould's Sugar, I decided to finally take the plunge into  Hüsker Dü 's catalog, and this was the first album I was able to find. By Candy Apple Grey , the band had nearly perfected their poppy power trio attack, mixing heavy, buzzsaw guitars with power pop affectations. Those elements were always there, even on 1981's raucous, live album Land Speed Record and the hardcore, yet melodic, Everything Falls Apart.  By 1986, after several more seminal records ( Zen Arcade , New Day Rising ,  Flip Your Wig ) in the hardcore/indie cannon, they perfected the form. Alternating between Mould's generally faster songs that increasingly relied on pop sensibilities and Hart's more lyrically-and vocally-focused songwriter paeans, both revolving heavily around ...

299. The In-Laws (1979), Arthur Hiller, Warner Bros. 300. Hopscotch (1980), Ronald Neame, AVCO Embassy 301. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), Woody Allen, United Artists  302. Bulldog Drummond's Peril (1938), James P. Hogan, Paramount 303. The Naked Spur (1953), Anthony Mann, MGM 304. A Christmas Horror Story (2015), Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, and Brett Sullivan, Image 305. The Great Dictator (1940), Charlie Chaplin, United Artists 306. Crumb (1994), Terry Zwigoff, Sony Pictures Classics 307. Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965), Don Owen and Donald Brittain, National Film Board of Canada  308. Black Panthers (1968), Agnes Varda

I find myself thinking about the Barracudas's song "Grammar of A Misery" today as I work on lesson plans, abstracts, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of academic life. The song is lyrically simple, yet holds complex emotional resonance for me. Jeremy Gluck sings in the chorus " Run From yourself for twenty years / Cry yourself a thousand tears / Call for help but no one's listening / At your grammar of misery." The sadness of going through the motions is evident as is the emotional pain of feeling alone in the void. The song makes evident how hard it can be to express our true feelings as we sink into a solipsistic state. Yet the song's propulsive drumming and ringing guitar chords coupled with the sheer energy of the Barracudas attack are hopeful. And check out that guitar solo and playful vocal effects that recall Generation X at their bounciest. However, The Barracudas are generally more complex than Billy Idol's first band. They tend to writ...

                         Hood's next group of songs is firmly rooted in the historical and very personal south and centers on Hood’s concept of the “duality of the southern thing.” “Birmingham” describes the unemployment and stresses of living there and trying to maintain an authentic identity. “The Southern Thing” is told from the perspective of a proud man who realizes the complexities of the south from General Lee to Martin Luther King, juxtaposing different ideas that play into Hood’s concept of southern duality. Hood has continually written more personal songs about the south and his identification with it throughout his career.             “The Three Alabama Icons” is set in hell and presents the history of three famous Alabama figures, prefiguring his later look at other historical figures, especially The...

289. Movie Crazy (1932), Clyde Bruckman and Harold Lloyd (Unc,), Paramount 290. Bullshot (1983), Dick Clement, Island  291. Wild Strawberries (1957), Ingmar Bergman, AB Svensk Filmindustri 292. Tracks (1977), Henry Jaglom, Trio 293. Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922), Benjamin Christensen, Skandias Filmbyrå 294. Who Is Henry Jaglom? (1985), Henry Alex Rubin and Jeremy Workman, P.O.V. 295. The Birth of A Nation (1915), D.W. Griffith, Epoch 296. "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" (1974), Sam Peckinpah, United Artists 297. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), Lotte Reiniger, Comenius-Film GmbH 298. Samurai I: Miyamoto Musashi (1954), Hiroshi Inagaki Toho

The idea for the album formed in a conversation between Hood and former bassist, Earl Hicks, in which they discussed writing a semi-autobiographical screenplay about their youth in the south and the plane crash that almost ended Skynyrd by taking the lives of vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backup vocalist Cassie Gaines in 1977.   Their chartered plane, a 1977 Convair CV-300, converted from a CV-240 ran out of fuel and crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi near the end of a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, where they had performed at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray were also killed in the crash, while 20 other people survived, including guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington. Bassist Leon Wilkeson, keyboardist Billy Powell, and drummer Artimus Pyle, who crawled out of the wreckage with members of the road crew, were also injure...