MUSIC
Ignoring Challenges That Musically Define Me
It’s hard to shake the monkey on your back
I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions, but I told myself I was going to only concentrate on fiction this year, and to ignore all the challenges issued. So, I’m going to ignore Terry Barr’s and Paul Combs’s challenge to define myself with 5 or 6 songs.
I’m still ignoring the challenge.
Drink some more coffee, Paul. The temptation will pass.
Nobody cares about your music definition.
Dang! Gosh, darn it! These darn challenges! (I’m also trying to use less foul language. We’ll see how that goes.)
At least The Clash was right for me when they sang:
No Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones
1977, Joe Strummer / Mick Jones / Paul Simonon / Topper Headon
And no bloody Springsteen, either. (I had to bleep myself here. And you should have heard me yowl when I censored my mention of Ted Nugent below.)
1. Screaming Fist by The Viletones
The greatest two-note song ever recorded, from Toronto original punks, The Viletones. I bought this as a twelve-inch single, released by a Montreal label called Montreco. The A-side was Screaming Fist and the B-side was Possibilities and Rebel. When I put the album on my Realistic turntable and cranked it through my pitiful little amp, it floored me. It was without a doubt the first time I had ever heard the angst, the anger, the rage that I felt every day and in every way. The song validated me and my feelings and still moves me to this day.
2. Ace of Spades by Motorhead
You know I’m born to lose, and gambling for fools But that’s the way I like it, baby, I don’t want to live forever
Ace of Spades, Motorhead
My first time seeing Motorhead was on a small colour TV as a 10 second black and white clip on a Canadian TV show called The New Music, hosted by J. D. Roberts(known to Fox news sycophants these days as John Roberts). Lemmy was standing with his microphone looming over him but not overshadowing him, his hair blowing, his Rickenbacher blasting away and his hair blowing back in the wind. It was like a speed freak Jesus had descended from the skies and I was to be his disciple. This was before they recorded Ace of Spades, and I have no idea what the song was, but it doesn’t really matter.
3. Gotta Get Away by Stiff Little Fingers
I grew up in small-town Ontario, an hour from a city, and I didn’t fit in, at all. There are lots of artists that talk about the general malaise within small towns (Steve Earle and Springsteen are two of the major artists that spring to mind) but for me, Stiff Little Fingers made the case the best. This was my theme song for many, many years. At times, it still is.
4. Rockaway Beach by Ramones
A track that’s a little happier by the greatest band ever. Growing up on what the marketing geeks are now calling Ontario’s West Coast wasn't as cool as they make it sound, but being near the beach and an unpolluted Great Lake was pretty good for a youngster in the 60s and 70s. And listening to Ramones takes me back to the simpler life — before jobs and people and disease got in the way. A happier and simpler time.
5. I’m An Upstart by The Angelic Upstarts
We don’t need to be clever to learn your lies We only have to listen, open up our eyes
I’m An Upstart, The Angelic Upstarts
We lost Mensi this year — fucking COVID — but the Upstarts will remain my favourite band. I was lucky enough to see them on my twentieth birthday, and have seen them several times since. One of my fondest memory of listening to the Upstarts is seeing my buddy Dick/Richard — whom we lost during the plague of the 80s — dancing around to them with a silly grin and a huge mohawk. But the basic refrain of I’m An Upstart still resonates with me.
6. Down on the Street — The Stooges
Just listen to the beat — being from Huron County in Ontario, Detroit was our closest influence. Soupy Sales and Sir Graves Ghastly dominated our televisions when the antennae could pick them up. And our music was Bob Seger, the MC5, Alice Cooper, Mitch Ryder, the MC5, and of course, The Stooges. (I’m ignoring Ted Nugent to the best of my ability despite him being pretty influential in my listening history.)
My first Iggy Pop concert was for his phenomenal Zombie Birdhouse tour with Chris Stein and Clem Burke and it was amazing. I was then fortunate enough to miss Iggy’s descent into mediocrity and caught up with him again with the reformed Stooges (Ron Ashton on guitar) at Massey Hall in Toronto and then saw the Stooges (the other guy on guitar — James Williamson) at a free NXNE concert at Dundas Square in Toronto. They were amazing shows.
This was the soundtrack of my youth. My adulthood has more defining songs, I’m sure, and they are not so filled with rage and angst, but my childhood and teens definitely were.
Rage defines a lot of what goes on in my soul, despite heading into the twilight of my life. And let me tell you, it’s far harder for the rage to burn at 59 than at 18, but without the rage, there would be no life worth living. It drives me to create, whether it’s words on the page or photographs or bad, bad music.
There is a lot more to me than these songs, but they definitely define a core part of my life and philosophies.
The Other’s challenges, which I so couldn’t ignore…
The Playlist
Paul Mansfield is a writer, photographer, guitar player, philosopher — some he does well, others not so well. He still tries them all. You can follow him on Twitter @pmansfield.
One of Paul’s noir tales is here:
