Easy streets are not for me (The Jesus and Mary Chain) #180

The Jesus and Mary Chain Rollercoaster; Silverblade/ Lowlife; Tower of Song (Banco y Negro 12", NEG 45 T, 1990)

The Jesus and Mary Chain were formed around the Reid brothers (Jim and William both on vocals and guitar). Their speciality was loud distortion drenched guitar sounds, muffled lyrics and plodding echoey drums sounds. It's a hell of a thing.

Rollercoaster is a glorious slice of alternative rock noise. The song later appeared on the Honey's Dead album in 1992. 

Hidden gems: This is an EP and apart from Rollercoaster the other tracks are peculiar to this single only. They don't appear to have been compiled elsewhere either so they have a rarity value.

The sound on the B side track Lowlife is a car crash of metallic feedback frenzy. The guitars are the thing here. Tower Of Song is their version of Leonard Cohen's song. I can't stand Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen but here his song's mashed into the Reid's signature sound with highly processed vocals and more hurdy gurdy swirling guitar noise. Glorious!

Why do I give valuable time to people who don't care if I live or die? (The Smiths)

I've never got Leonard Cohen.

I've said before that hating a piece of music is stoopid but, by Jiminy, there are some groups/singers that get me jolly close to that point.
Obviously this is entering very subjective territory.

Category 1 - singer offends my ears:  Zager and Evans' In the Year 2525; Bjork (everything), Portishead (everything); Geddy Lee from Rush; Opera (everything); the bloke from Pavlov's Dog; Leonard Cohen.

Category 2 - the song's boring: Zager and Evans' In the Year 2525; George Bakers' Little Green Bag; all techno/trance club drone music with a mechanical durff durff beat; Leonard Cohen (yep - all of it).

Category 3 - the subject matter is offensive: a lot of Heavy/Hard Rock posturing can be quite cringe inducing and that goes for a lot of Rap as well; all of the Satan worshipping sub-genre of Metal turns me right off; any misogynist song (Jagger? Guilty as charged, and a lot of rap bilge); self aggrandisements (my name is Prince? Yawn).

Category 4 - sheer unrelentingly depressing music: Leonard Cohen.

I don't mind getting into a melancholy state of mind from time to time but I draw the line at infinite sadness. And that seems to sum up Leonard's oeuvre.

Various friends and colleagues have tried to get me to enter Cohenville over the years and I did watch a lot of the Live In London DVD from a few years back (Lenny in tie 'n' fedora down t'O2 Arena) but I got bored after a few songs and needed a dose of Rammstein to cleanse the palette.

He's a weird one really - a Canadian misery guts poet who fell into being a song and dance man.

Even his poetry fails to move me.

In Suzanne, frinstance, we have the enigmatic refrain - you've touched her perfect body with your mind. What the hell does that mean? And then Jesus appears in the song! Whaaaat?????

There's nothing in there for me to grab onto and so I drift off. Have a go...



Yeah I know - he's world famous, he's sold heaps of records, he gets the ladies, he's on the cover of Mojo... but (picture me shaking my head from side to side with a quizzical expression) I just don't get it.