If I took the top 10% from each of my ten smartest friends and then combined them all into one person, that person would resemble Chuck Klosterman. I read all his books and listen to him on any podcast he appears on. (Music Exists debuted on Spotify February 17th!) Hell, I even read The Ethicist every week in The New York Times when that was his gig. Though I appreciate many authors, Chuck and myself happen to share a hard drinking/rocking Midwest background often putting us on the “same page” as it were. Or put another way, when Klosterman describes a girlfriend as more Vinnie Vincent than Bruce Kulick, that makes total sense to me.
ANYWAY, I recently finished Chuck’s latest collection of fictional nonfiction, the excellent Raised in Captivity, when I decided to dig back into the first book of his I’d ever read: Fargo Rock City - A Heavy Metal Odyssey In Rural North Dakota. This very book banged around the Watershed van for hundreds of shows shortly after it was released in 2001. As luck would have it, nineteen years later drummer Herb Schupp and myself were heading up to Michigan to finish some new Watershed tracks with Tim Patalan and I brought Fargo along with us to kill some of the hours hanging around The Loft.
We passed the book back & forth laughing at our favorite passages. Now, please join me down the rabbit-hole as TV Party Tonight! salutes Chuck Klosterman and Fargo Rock City.
Pg. 170 “Like a Tasmanian devil whirling toward vaginas and self-destruction, the Guitarmageddon unleashed by ex-KISS wackmobile Vincent on this solo debut is so schlockily stunning that I still have to play album six times every year..… Right from track number one, you know what you are getting: “Boys Are Gonna Rock” has two and a half guitar solos.”
Pg. 161 “I tend to like the first three songs on side two of Girls Girls Girls, (especially Five Years Dead, mostly because it sounds like they are saying Bach is dead, which actually makes more sense). And I’ve always enjoyed the sentimental throwaway Nona, a tribute to Sixx’s dead grandma, which is especially touching when followed by Sumthin’ for Nuthin’, a song about having sex with grandma’s who are still alive.”
Pg. 134 “If you believe Hammer of the Gods, Satan’s favorite band of all time was Led Zeppelin.….
Legend was that three of four members made a deal with the devil in exchange for superstardom...Only John Paul Jones didn’t sign the pact….the other three were struck by Satan’s evil power. John Bonham choked on his own vomit, Robert Plant tragically lost his son, and Page would go on to collaborate with David Coverdale.”
Pg. 141 “After fronting two musically inept devil bands that sang about killing babies and raping children, Glenn Danzig put together a legitimate group and had Rick Rubin produce. From what I can tell, every song is about committing suicide and partying with Satan. Punkers who liked his early work swear he is being sly but I’ve never seen anything to support that claim.”
Okay, this is me, Colin, talking now. That Danzig song sucks sooo bad. Along with “Kryptonite” by Three Doors Down, they are the two WORST tracks kicking around recurrent rotation on Brew and Blitz type formats. I’m so glad that one dude punched Danzig in the face when he started running his mouth backstage.
Pg. 153 “ As a general rule I hate all non-KISS, non-Cheap Trick live albums but this one deserves inclusion...Considering how much the people of Canada love Rush, one has to assume that the Germans literally worship the Scorpions. I mean, what else is there? Kraftwerk? Warlock?”
Pg. 200 “September 10, 1990, Warrant releases Cherry Pie. In a CD review for my college newspaper, I call this record “Stellar.” It is three years before I’m allowed to review another record.”
Pg. 218 “In theory, here is what the Use Your Illusion video trilogy was supposed to mean --- or at least what I could deduce from watching it a few dozen times. Don’t Cry was the first video, but is actually the second act of a three act play. November Rain was the second video but it’s actually the story’s first act (even though it opens with the beginning of the third act and ends with the conclusion of Act II). Estranged is the third act and supposedly the conclusion, but it has clips from both Act I and Act II and really doesn’t explain anything at all. On paper, this obviously makes no sense. On screen, it’s only slightly more clear.
Don’t Cry opens with a baby who has extremely (in fact, unrealistically) blue eyes, immediately followed by an image of a crow. The next shot is Axl walking through a blizzard, holding a bottle of booze and a gun. The significance of these clips is alluded to later in the production, but never explained.”
“When November Rain premiered on Headbanger’s Ball in the summer of 1992, it was immediately hyped by MTV as the greatest video ever made. Immediately after its virgin broadcast, VJ Riki Rachtman looked directly into the camera and earnestly said, ‘That……was amazing.’”
“In perhaps the most blatant abuse of stardom ever attempted in a rock video, the turning point of Estranged takes place on a rented ocean liner. Axl Rose leaps off the mammoth ship and thrashes in the rough sea. Gilby Clarke tries to rescue him in a rowboat (apparently, Clarke was only added to the GNR lineup to rescue Rose from sea-faring disasters). Clarke fails. Axl is going to die...until he is saved by dolphins.
Estranged concludes with Axl’s Converse shoe coming to rest on the ocean floor and Rose sitting with a dolphin…It basically reminded me that Axl Rose only seemed brilliant as long as we didn’t know what we were trying to do. As soon as we got the idea, it was just another stupid video.”
Pg. 21 “Listening to Clapton is like getting a sensual massage from a woman you’ve loved for the past ten years; listening to Van Halen is like having the best sex of your life with three foxy nursing students you met at the Tastee Freez……..A lot of credit must go to David Lee Roth…..Roth demanded that Van Halen had to be about a lifestyle, specifically his lifestyle… In tangible terms it made Eddie better. Instead of being an artist trying to make art, Eddie was forced to become an artist trying to make noise - and the end result was stunning. Within the stark simplicity of Janie’s Cryin’ you can hear the shackled simplicity of a genius.”
Pg. 107 “Heavy metal is clearly not a conduit for actual intercourse. Though no studies were conducted at the time, it’s safe to say most guys listening to Iron Maiden in the 1980’s were not getting laid all that often. It’s not like metal was the soundtrack of rampant teenage sex. It was actually the soundtrack from rampant teenage abstinence.”
Well that was fun. I encourage all you folks read or listen to some Chuck Klosterman the next chance you get. It’s really great stuff. - Colin
Colin Gawel plays solo and in the band Watershed. He founded Pencilstorm.com and wrote this at Colin’s Coffee. He thinks KISS Monster is actually a pretty good record. Chuck Klosterman does not agree.
