ok, so it's saturday morning and i just washed the dishes and i'm listening to the first bad brains album

ok, so it's saturday morning and i just washed the dishes and i'm listening to the first bad brains album (well, roir cassette, actually) and i've probably listened to this album, oh, 10,000 times, but it still amazes me how unbelievably good it is. a part of me wants to run out and get 'big takeover' tattooed on my back and start a hardcore band and live in a van behind denny's.

i saw the bad brains recently and the band sounded amazing. they were flawless. and, uh, h.r's performance was, uh, unique. for 1/2 the show he just kind of stood there and smiled at the audience. for the other 1/2 of the show he sang very softly and quietly while the band went nuts around him and the audience actually sang so loudly that at some point h.r just went back to standing there and smiling.

quite a lot different from the first time i saw bad brains in 1982 and h.r was doing backflips on stage and screaming like a banshee on crack and hurling himself into the audience.

i remember about a decade ago i was listening to 'house of suffering' from 'the youth are getting restless' live album and my girlfriend at the time asked me 'what is this?' and i said 'bad brains, isn't it amazing?' and she started laughing and said, 'no, it's TERRIBLE'. i guess that was when i knew the relationship was doomed. how could anyone listen to the live version of 'house of suffering' and not get goose pimples everywhere and want to build a time machine and go back to the paradiso in 1987?

it's nice that in music there are certain absolutes that almost everyone accepts quite happily. like that rakim was the best rapper. that marvin gaye's 'what's going' on?' is the best album ever made. that 'i feel love' is the best electronic dance song ever recorded. that 'playing with knives' by bizarre inc. was the best rave anthem. that X were the best l.a punk band. and that the bad brains were the best hardcore band.

i love being a fan. isn't it amazing that there are people who've made such amazing records? oh, and i think that 'record' is a good general term for any collection of music. a 'record' could be a cd or a piece of vinyl or a cassette or a collection of mp3's. so i'll keep calling them records, if that's ok. ok, have a nice weekend.

moby