Iggy had a wonderful song called “I’m Bored”. It’s got a great riff in it and he complains that he’s “sick of all the DIPS”. Right on man. Hey, but now he sells car insurance. Eew, what a shame. What’s Johnny Lydon up to? Butter adverts….but he sneers in them so it’s not that bad, I guess. What’s going on?

Hey remember G.G. Allin? I remember him being very cool in a wacked-out, almost “OMG LOL so random” way in the 90s. Back before youtube and the like – begorrah – he was something you heard about and initially had to imagine. Picture the scene…it’s after school, you have a Metallica logo (probably) drawn on your light green canvas bag and you’ve recently taken up smoking. Your pal would find him tucked away in HMV and pull out the CD.

“Have you heard of this guy? He beats people up if they go to his gigs. Then he shits on the floor. He’s great.”

“No – What’s his music like”

“Oh it’s utter bollocks. But look, he’s got his little tiny knob out. Hey he cuts himself on stage too, naked. Sticks the mic up his ass. Etc etc”


<-- You won't see Gary fucking Lightbody at this.

While chatting about this lunatic recently I noticed that my female companion thought he was rather disgusting and pointless. Why the violence. Why the bloodlust, the mysogynistic hatred? Why was he such a pervert? And more importantly, why do/did people venerate him? Looking at some festival line-ups and band bios in Ireland, I think you can get a feel for why someone like this comes along every now and then, and why they’re appreciated when they do. Wasn’t the point of punk to “blow the cobwebs off”, and kick the big, bloated, cape-wearing, D&D-playing bellied carcass of rock up it’s hole? Knock in the doors and start picking it’s nose, sneering and spitting. “Who cares if we can’t play – fuck off. I just put a RING through my nose. What do you think of that RICK WAKEMAN? Yeah! Hey now I’m drinking BLEACH”. And so on. It’s not that it’s good in and of itself, it’s that it’s so different to what has been really overstaying it’s welcome. Does that make it good, worthwhile? No. Does it make it welcome and relieving in the context of where it is? Sure does. G.G. Allin’s music was terrible but you could never accuse him of being boring.

So now it’s 2012 and everything’s very nice again. Electric Picnic this year, let’s see. Sigur Ros…Elbow….Christy fucking Moore. I can imagine the large sea of faces at the picnic, a mixture of bored and depressed as Christy shites on about shovels and trots out that god-awful song about Lisdoonvarna, which witless people think is humorous for some reason. I suppose Christy Moore is Christy Moore and that’s the end of it. In fact, if anything he has rather a cantankerous reputation. Probably won’t cut himself and fight women on stage but you never know. It would be pretty cool. Owdle deedle daw.

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