"There's
something strange going on down here
A sickening implosion
of mistrust and fear.
A vast corruption
that's about to boil
A mixture of greed and
the smell of oil."
-Kevin Ayers, 'Song From the Bottom of a Well'
"I can't feel a
thing, I can't feel a thing."
-Big Star, 'Big Black Car'
with special guest DJ Godwinbot
This week, Avant Gardening joins the celebration of the
comprehensive above-water sea change in world politics with the impending
inauguration of Donald Trump on the 20th January, with a show dedicated to an
avowedly specific critical rejigging of various strands of popular and
underground culture that maybe say something about the different ways we can
understand this moment. Songs of aphasiac dissatisfaction, nihilism,
alienation, the incremental devolution of responsibility and possibility in
hegemonic American culture, are interspersed with outside perspectives of
resistance, condemnation and inevitability. The playlist is unapologetically
predominantly white and male: as these are the people that got us to where we are now, so this selection reflects one version of the fallout: a combining of denial, anger and
depression that charts the American hegemonic cult of the individual we can see as a toxic bloom in 2017.
Playlist:
1. Kevin Ayers, 'Song
from the bottom of a well', from Whatevershebringswesing (1972).
2. Bill Fay, 'Pictures
Of Adolf Again', from Time Of The Last Persecution (1971).
3. The Replacements,
'Unsatisfied', from Let It Be (1984).
4. American Music
club, 'Patriot's Heart', from A Toast to You - Recorded Live in Pittsburgh
(2005).
5. Leonard Cohen,
'Everybody Knows', from I'm Your Man (1988).
6. Big Star, 'Big
Black Car', from Third/Sister Lovers (1975).
7. Jason Molina, 'Get
Out Get Out Get Out', from Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go (2006).
8. Townes van Zandt,
'Flying Shoes', from Absolutely Nothing (2002).
9. Jim Shepard,
'Birthplace of Aviation', from Motorcycle Movie (1998).
10. Peter Jefferies, 'Slow Motion', recorded live at the
Khyber (1993).
11. The Fall, 'Who Make the Nazis?', from Hex Induction Hour
(1982).
12. Bassholes, 'Angel of Death', from Long Way
Blues/1996-1998 (1998).
13. Mike Rep and the Quotas, 'Rocket to Nowhere', single
(1977).
14. Rocket from the Tombs, 'Ain't it Fun', from Peter
Laughner, Take the Guitar Player for a Ride (1974, 1993).
15. Tommy Roundtree, 'Here in this Meat Department', from
Jungle Blood (2007).
16. Neil Young, 'For the Turnstiles', from On the Beach
(1975).
17. Roky Erickson, 'White Faces', from Demon Angel (1994).
18. Elvis Costello, 'Stranger in the House' (BBC version, 1978), from This Year's Model, bonus tracks (2002).
19. V-3, 'American Face', from Photograph Burns (1996).
20. Fugazi, 'Do You Like Me', from Red Medicine (1995).
21. Ol' Dirty Bastard, 'Raw Hide', from Return to the 36
Chambers (1995).
22. Suicide, 'Frankie Teardrop', from Suicide (1977).
23. Swans, 'Job (live)', from Body to Body, Job to Job
(1982-85,1990).
24. Fetus Productions, 'State to be in', from Fetalmania
(1983)
25. Skeptics, 'Sheen of Gold', from Amalgam (1990).
26. This Heat, 'SPQR', from Deceit (1981).
27. Public Image Limited, 'Albatross', from Metal Box
(1979).
28. John Cale, 'Gun', from Fear (1974).
29. Vertical Slit, 'I Remember Nothing', from Under the
Blood Red Lava Lamp (1986).
30. Scott Walker, 'Clara', from The Drift (2006).
31. Robert Wyatt, 'At Last I Am Free', single, 1980.
32. Blind Willie Davis, 'I believe I'll go back home', from
American Primitive Vol. I, raw pre-war gospel 1926-36 (1997).
