Listification

My Top 25 Bands of All Time as of 9:13 AM 10/18/2004:
(actually 28, and not necessarily in any particular order, although the Minutemen are definitely #1)

Minutemen
Meat Puppets
fIREHOSE
Monks of Doom
Black Flag
Swingin' Neckbreakers
All
NoMeansNo
Victims Family
Bad Brains
Walt Mink
Hüsker Dü
Dinosaur Jr.
House of Large Sizes
Descendents
Nels Cline (various endeavors)
Fu Manchu
Tar Babies
Don Caballero
Schlong
Mudhoney
Jesus Lizard
Unwound
Dead Kennedys
Poster Children
Guided By Voices
Untamed Youth
Ruins

If you had asked me ten years ago (1994) what my top 25 bands were, I probably would have told you something like the following:

Minutemen
Meat Puppets
fIREHOSE
Monks of Doom
Black Flag
Mudhoney
All
Jonathan Richman
Nuisance
Camper van Beethoven
Bitch Magnet
NoMeansNo
Victims Family
Bad Brains
Hüsker Dü
Dinosaur Jr.
House of Large Sizes
Descendents
Tar Babies
Schlong
Dead Kennedys
Ween
Squirrel Bait
My Name
Ed Hall

...and if you had asked me fifteen years ago (1989), I probably would have laid this on you:

Black Flag
Dead Kennedys
The Exploited
Minutemen
DOA
Hüsker Dü
Minor Threat
Big Boys
Suicidal Tendencies
GBH
Jane's Addiction
Descendents
Dinosaur Jr.
Bad Brains
Misfits
Meat Puppets
D.R.I.
Motorhead
Ramones
JFA
Government Issue
The Accused
Dag Nasty
Didjits
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Now I see Camper van Beethoven has a new album out after a 15-year absence. This would have raised a moral objection from me as recently as a couple of years ago, but as it stands now, I guess I'm glad for them. Even if they do it just for the money! Which I tend to doubt anyway! Although, if I had my druthers, I'd have opted for a Monks of Doom reunion, which is all of CVB minus David Lowery. Monks of Doom was by far the superior band in every way, and I say this as someone who has been a long-standing fan of both bands.

Anyway, I figure there's a latent music-buying market just waiting to be tapped, and it's dudes like me who were rabid music fans in the 80s and 90s, and now find ourselves going to bed at 9:30 and too busy with babies and commuting to keep up with new musics, and so when a band that we dug hard back then like CVB reunites, we're all over it like a badger on a cricket. Mark my words! Next up: Hüsker Dü reunion?

Actually, as you have probably noticed, this is not really a new development. You look up at my Top 25 list above, especially the 1989 one, and not many of those bands have vanished for good. The token three-letter bands, JFA, DRI and GBH are all still kicking it to some degree, as evidenced from the upcoming shows ads in my local alt-newsweekly. DOA was playing shows fairly recently. The Exploited is still exploiting. Motorhead is, to my knowledge, still motoring (what's their price for flight?). Dead Kennedys and Black Flag have both had reunions of some sorts. Bad Brains has broken up and reunited more times than anyone can keep track of. Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction: still going. The two remaining Minutemen have been playing shows and are talking about touring. The Meat Puppets are still quasi-active, although the bass player is in jail for beating up a security guard and by all accounts has been maintaining a death-wish-level heroin habit prior to that.

It's weird how, as recently as a few years ago, for a band like Black Flag to reunite was considered by many punk rock purists to be the highest form of heresy. And nowadays, bands from yesteryear reuniting is so de rigueur that nobody thinks twice about it, or if they do, it's not perceived as some sort of high moral crime. This is a good development. That whole punk rock orthodoxy thing has long since worn out its welcome, and anyway, as a practical matter, if Wattie Buchan's kid needs orthodontic work done, and Wattie's most marketable asset (by far) is the fact that he's been in The Exploited, doesn't it make more sense for him to wring some $$$ out of that, as opposed to waiting tables in some shitty Edinburgh diner at age 45? And if he can bring joy to legions of young punkers in so doing, I say godspeed, Mr. Wattie.

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And also: My associate and former Vesicular Basalt bassist Paul "The High Lord of Boundaryshire" Krysiak has a new website coming 'round the mountain: skyking.150m.com.

And also: Photos showing evidence that Pres. Bush was wired during the debates

And also: if you care, I gotta go back to the standard weekly format. That daily thing is too much work for a lethargic lardass like myself.

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