Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Thursday, March 27

Inept's old music, circa 2002-2005, is amazing. i've seen them more times than i've seen any other band--sixteen times, at all kinds of small to medium venues around chicago. this is one of my favourite Inept songs, "Beyond The Tears."

i'm looking forward to seeing them again when i live back in town. i can't say i'm a fan of their more recent songs, but i'd love to see if they play anything from their first three EPs anymore.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Friday, March 21

Ditchwater was awesome. i saw them around Chicago all the time back in 2003, 2004...around the days of their most excellent Sees Me Through EP. "It's Over" has always been one of my favourite songs of theirs. excuse the video editing that is cheesy at best and dizzying at worst...there's a reason why Ditchwater is a band and not a video production conglomerate. but, the song is a good, straightforward rocker.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Thursday, March 13

"Guestbook" by Ratbag Hero is a good little metasong. Ratbag Hero was a fantastic, silly Chicago punk band who sang a lot about beer drinking, partying, and girls. this song is about someone posting in their internet guestbook telling them that they can't write another love song, or another song about beer. of course, actually following such advice would be bad, because that's really all Ratbag Hero wrote about...so they wrote a song about how confused they were that those two topics were verboten. it's clever, it's hilarious, and it's Ratbag Hero.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Sunday, March 9

someone decided to make a really, really funny video of "Birdman Kicked My Ass" by Wesley Willis. a dude dressed up in a half-assed bird costume and everything. it's fantastic.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Wednesday, March 5

rock over london. rock on chicago. Wesley Willis is awesome...and "Cut The Mullet" is one of his funniest songs. it's also practical advice for your everyday life. mullets are no good, and should be cut at the earliest convenience.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Thursday, February 28

no more rap. no more disco.

instead, it's a song that fifteen-year-old girls love: "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy. this is one of the times the fifteen year olds got it right. i'm not a fan of most of Fall Out Boy's stuff, but this song is fantastic. the tune is catchy, and it's fun to sing along to. plus, the line "i'm just a notch in your bedpost/but you're just a line in a song" resonates with me. it's a theme of mutual use.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Saturday, February 23

i didn't list these guys on my list of the best Chicago music you've never heard, because this song did come out on a major label release. however, Beyond The Calm of the Corridor never got the airplay it deserved, and the band broke up soon after. "Thicker" is one of my favourite songs on the album. it's angry, the kind of song that is very therapeutic to wail along to when you're having a terrible day.

74 Minutes or Less #4: The Best Chicago Music You've Never Heard

welcome to the fourth installment of 74 Minutes or Less.

74 Minutes or Less is the weekly supergig playlist. the concept is simple: i pick a theme, i choose at most 74 minutes of music that fits the theme, and i discuss it here. if you, or i, or anyone else thinks the playlist is so awesome that it deserves to be compiled and burned to CD for posterity, it won't be a problem--because it's no longer than 74 minutes.

this week's theme is the best Chicago music you've never heard. some of these bands are still together, some of these bands have broken up, and some of these bands are somewhere in between--they have the same name as before, and one or two of the same members, but the music is so different nowadays that they're hardly recognizable as their former selves.

over my five years living in Chicago, i racked up a lot of music by just picking up demos at the many, many local shows i attended. most of it was unremarkable. some of it was really, really bad. but, there were the occasional songs that were good enough to make me take notice. they were good enough to get me to start following the band, and good enough to stay on my regular playlist even though the band may be long gone.

to get on this list, i had to have first heard the song on a demo, an independently produced and locally released album, or at a concert in the Chicago area. [obviously, the band also needs to be from the Chicago area.] if there is a link from the song title, then the song is still available online for free download on their band page or MySpace...so check it out there. most of the other songs were distributed freely to me on demos--so if one of the descriptions intrigues you, leave me a comment or an email, and i'll share the love.

so, here it goes--74 Minutes or Less of the best Chicago music you've never heard, in alphabetical order by band.¹

• "Maybe" by A.D.D. (3:27)
• i don't like a lot of female-fronted rock. i like the sound of a man's voice screaming and growling a lot better than i like the sound of most women trying to do it. i say "most women," because Margie from A.D.D. is a refreshing exception to the general precept. the song is snarky, angry, and powerful. i wish i could have a karaoke track of this song, though...not that i could do it well [my own voice is far more suited to art songs than to heavy metal], but i have spent so many years singing along to this song that i'd love to try it in public at least once.
  
• "Hole In His Head" by The Burbanks (2:09)
• this is the only song a band has ever played for me in a concert...the singer knew it was my favourite, so at a show at Hogs Head McDunna's back in the spring of 2004, he dedicated it to me. i don't know what this says about me, since it's not a happy song lyricall. but, never have i heard a more fun, exciting, and energetic song about a guy shooting himself. i don't know what happened to The Burbanks, though...their bad website is still up, but they haven't played shows in years. that's a shame, because they were so good at simple, straightforward, and fun punk rock songs.
  
• "Urban Tragedy" by Charleston Dueling Society (5:09)
• this song is a sad story, almost gratuitously so...it's about a guy who wants to propose to his girlfriend on new year's eve, and finds out a week later that she died in a drunk driving accident. in fact, the only dead lover song that i can think of that's more gratuitous than this one is "Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ray Peterson. i don't care...i'm a sucker for that stuff sometimes.
  
• "It's A Stick-Up" by Dead Man Holiday (4:24)
• in a moment this band appeared, and in a moment they were gone. they rose from the ashes of Red River, played two or three shows, and disappeared. luckily, i caught one of those shows, a show at The Metro on August 15, 2003...with Escape From Earth, Empyrean, and Inept. they were full of energy, and one of their songs really made an impression on me. i didn't know what it was called, but it was that song that made the crowd jump around and start yelling about a stick up. i managed to grab a demo on the way out, greedily opened it, and looked for a track listing. sure enough, track #4 on the four-song demo was "It's A Stick-Up." success. Dead Man Holiday did re-form about a year after those first few shows, but the lineup was almost completely different, as was the music, and they got very angry on the message boards if any of the fans brought up old Dead Man Holiday songs like this one. it's a shame, because so few songs have ever gotten my adrenaline running like "It's A Stick-Up."
  
• "Bad Human" by Disonic (3:56)
• this song has one of my favourite quotes of all time: "how can i explain the feelings and the thoughts within...when every word deserves another." it's how i feel most of the time...i can't express anything without rambling on and on. [hence, the extremely long entries here!] the song always gets me in a self-reflective mood.
  
• "Blister" by Ditchwater (3:08)
• this song makes me want to push people and throw things. there's screaming, growling, and heavy guitar riffs. it gets my adrenaline flying. the lyrics are just as straightforward as the song...someone's making fun of him behind his back, and he wants to beat the offender up. Ditchwater was never good at being subtle; that was always part of their charm. what they were good at was making me want to scream and mosh. and, sometimes...that's really all you need.
  
• "Bottled" by Dysception (4:38)
• the entire Three-Thirteen EP by Dysception was gold: it had this song on it, as well as "Inside My Cage" and "Pity." lyric writing was never their strong point; the lyrics are as trite as the song titles make you think they would be. but, no matter. if i'm having a bad day because i'm stressed out with or pissed off at someone, screaming along to Dysception's songs is such a tension reliever. as a side note...when i saw them in concert, Tim always had the best shirts. during the concerts, he would wear a shirt that said "will drum for food." after the show, when it was time to go out drinking, he would wear a different shirt: "will drum for beer." i loved those shirts, and would have bought one if they had sold clones at the merch booth.²
  
• "Beautiful" by Escape From Earth (4:14)
• i never understood why Escape from Earth never made it big outside Chicago. they're on hiatus now, but circa 2003 or 2004 they were one of the biggest bands on the local scene. they played a ton of shows...and regularly played The Metro, the holy grail of concert venues for local rock acts. their music was so radio-friendly that i sometimes feel a little bad for liking them as much as i do...i still have that lingering teenage discomfort with the idea of laying back and enjoying a well-crafted pop song for what it is. in short, Escape from Earth wrote a lot of well-crafted, fun, interesting pop songs. the best of them were their two ballads: "Beautiful" and "Without." i always liked "Beautiful" a little better; whereas "Without" is mourning the loss of a lover, "Beautiful" turns inward and considers the tensions brought about by the fickle monster, self-esteem.
  
• "These Days" by Inept (3:31)
• i have seen Inept more times than any other band...sixteen times, to be exact. and, they only played this song two or three times out of those sixteen. that always frustrated me...because not only does it have an interesting melody, but the lyrics eschew the traditional emo-rock themes of most of their songs in favour of being an extremely thoughtful protest song against the Iraq War. at least this one was recorded, though. my other favourite song of theirs, a tearjerking acoustic number called "Didn't Know You Well Enough", never was...and i only heard it once, at an acoustic show they played at The Fat Bean coffeehouse in Naperville.
  
• "Nerve Gas" by Kill Hannah (3:44)
  
• i know...Kill Hannah is a little out of place here. this is supposed to be the best Chicago music you've never heard, and you've probably heard Kill Hannah before. but, you've probably not heard this song or anything else off of American Jet Set...and i first heard Kill Hannah back in 2001, when someone in my dorm told me i needed to hear them, and brought me out to the Metro to see them play with Caviar and Ashtar Command. most of the album is very good, and i had trouble picking one song to put on this playlist. it was down to this one and "Get Famous"...and i've been more into this one these last few months. i still can't figure out what the lyrics mean [although i do see that they evoke an inscrutable post-apocalyptic fantasy world], but the song is Kill Hannah at their gloom-pop best.
  
• "Schizome" by No Fate (4:49)
• local Chicago bands wrote some very good songs about being insane in an evil way--this is the first of two on this list. this song is about being aware of the fact that you're the evil kind of crazy, and portrays that inner fight between honestly acting on it and tactfully hiding it. the band was all high school aged when they wrote the song, which makes it even more impressive because they don't sound nearly so young. the guitar solo at the end is a little overdone, but other than that, the song is very well put together.
  
• "Cook County Sheriff" by Ratbag Hero (2:29)
• it takes a special kind of band to write a tongue-in-cheek song about drunk driving. it takes a special kind of band to write a song from the perspective of the drunk driver who died as a result of his own folly...and then have the gall to blame the cop who didn't ticket him for drunk driving and therefore prevent the death. it takes a special kind of band...and Ratbag Hero was a special kind of band. all their songs were about things like booze, girls, partying, and the south side of Chicago...and the songs evinced the same mood as hanging out with them offstage. they weren't serious, but that was the beauty of it. they kept it real more than any other band i ever knew.
  
• "Koo?" by Red River (4:47)
• if "Schizome" was the contemplative song about being crazy, "Koo?" is the song about embracing the insanity. Red River was Chicago's horror-metal band in the late nineties and early oughts. they took the stage dressed in bizarre costumes, complete with fake blood, fake chainsaws, and mannequins that had seen better days. this song fits that picture perfectly...it's about blaming everyone else for your being crazy, resigning yourself to it, and going on a murder spree. there's nothing happy about this song except for the way the groove makes you feel. this is one of those songs that makes you feel a little bit bad for liking it so much, but it's so catchy and fun despite its macabre subject matter that you'll go back to it again and again and again.
  
• "The World Is Ours" by Reforma (3:37)
• you may recognize the name Reforma from the reference i made during my discussion of the Madina Lake concert; Dan and Mateo from Madina Lake used to be in Reforma. it seems as though all references to this band have disappeared from the internet save the occasional Madina Lake fan desperately begging message boards for any of their music. it's too bad, because they were so good--better than Madina Lake, even. rock, dance-pop, hardcore...they mixed it up with panache, and made the crowds go wile. this song came in two versions: the recorded version titled "The World Is Ours", and the live version which they called "Sorry." i wish they had recorded "Sorry"; the lyrics are almost the same, but the singing features a lot less melody and a lot more yelling. i could never decide which version i liked better; it depended on my mood. but, either way, it was my favourite Reforma song.
  
• "The Nurse With Amnesia" by Shades of Fiction (3:12)
• Shades of Fiction just broke up about two weeks ago...and that makes me sad. they didn't say why; they just put up a one-sentence MySpace bulletin saying they were done, and left it at that. they put on such passionate shows. the lead singer, Picasso, was always stellar...and it always made me so sad that i missed his band before Shades of Fiction, Crash Poet. they played Chicago a lot, but i just never got the chance to see them. at least i saw Shades of Fiction two or three times during their lifespan. and...this song was the best of their work. Picasso's voice just soars throughout; no other word suffices to describe it.
  
• "Simple Song" by Shooting Blanks! (3:38)
• Shooting Blanks is so much fun. they call their music "drunkPunk," and this song is exactly that. it's a fun little ditty about being drunk at a party, seeing a cute girl...and being too shy to do anything about it, and resigned to being happily oblivious in a few minutes after passing out. they broke up back in early 2007, but reunited for a fantastic show at The Mutiny back in november of last year. hopefully they'll at least sporadically reunite for shows, because the Chicago scene just isn't as goofy without them.
  
• "Sorry Illinois" by Shot Baker (2:40)
• this song is a cover; Francesco Ostello performed the original. the original is a slow, lilting piece of acoustic folk. Ostello presented the idea...but Shot Baker made it awesome. they took the song and morphed the melody into a loud, fast punk rock song. the songs evoke two different moods about leaving...the original makes you feel like the speaker is just rambling on, but Shot Baker's cover makes it feel like the speaker is frustrated, restless, and needs to leave to maintain his sanity. as someone who finds it almost too easy to feel trapped or frustrated, i find Shot Baker's mood far more relatable. even if you are a little more easygoing, Shot Baker is worth listening to if you appreciate raw punk rock.
  
• "Fallen" by Synikal (4:01)
• it is strange that this band has dropped off the face of the earth...four years ago, they were everywhere. they were never one of my favourite bands in Chicago, but they played with everyone i liked, so i ended up having to watch them perform a lot. they were also one of the few bands on the scene who had a promoter...this guy Dmitri who was always talking them up, passing out flyers, posting about them on internet fora, and otherwise getting the word out about them. sometimes i wonder if that guy had any other job than promoting Synikal. as boring as most of their music was, they had two songs that were fantastic: this one, and "Someday." "Fallen" is remarkable because of its total disconnect between music and lyrics: the music is upbeat and exciting, whereas the lyrics discuss growing apart from someone. it works, though...the excitement feels like a desperate attempt to push past the frustration.
  
• "Stars Don't Shine" by Three Words To Live By (3:20)
• i know nothing about this band. i never did know anything. i never saw them, although according to Metro History they played the Metro once, almost exactly four years ago. that's all i can dig up about them now. i picked up their demo CD from somebody on my way out of another show at the Metro one day, and then lost the CD in the shuffle. i listened to it a few times later in 2004 or early in 2005, and then forgot about it again. i just rediscovered this song last week when it came up in shuffle play on iTunes, and i wonder how i let it slip under the radar for so long. it's a lot more low-key than most songs i listen to; it's not loud, fast, or hard. but, it's a great song for a sad day, or even just a pensive day. it broods about a missed opportunity, a mistimed attraction...and does it honestly, without being overblown.
  

total time: 70:53.

that was 74 Minutes or Less #4: The Best Chicago Music You've Never Heard. if you've got a thematic idea for a future playlist, comment or email me at superherogirl@gmail.com.

***
¹ and...if you have heard any of these tracks before you read this, please tell me. i apologize in advance for disappointing you by promising music you've never heard. however, i also congratulate you for having discovered one of these hidden gems.
² ...despite the fact that i can't drum for food, beer, or anything else. when i was singing in a band in college, the drummer in my band tried to teach me a very simple drumbeat. i failed miserably at it when i started trying with both hands--and let's not even talk about when i tried to use my feet as well.

the supergig guide to rock and roll etiquette

last weekend i saw Madina Lake, Every Avenue, Good 4 Nothing, The Shower Scene, and Evident Phase at the Creepy Crawl. the concert was good...well, at least three of the bands were. one was mediocre. one was awful.

and, the behaviour by some of the rockers and some of the fans was just inexcusable.

Madina Lake is one of my favourite bands from Chicago, and they always put on passionate shows that make the crowd go nuts. they're a little bit emo and a little bit rock. i've known them all since they were in their previous bands...Mateo and Dan used to be in Reforma, and Nathan and Matthew used to be in The Blank Theory. Madina Lake's music is significantly different from either of these old bands, but just as worth listening to. their song "Adalia" is one of the defining songs of my law school life...what can i say? law school can make a girl feel really emotionally disconnected sometimes, just like the subject of this song. furthermore, even though this band has gone further than any of their previous bands, they haven't gotten too big for their britches. they're still really nice guys off the stage, and act exactly the same way now as when they were playing much smaller venues to much smaller crowds.

Good 4 Nothing has an awful [and awfully trite] band name...but their music was amazing. they played fast pop-punk with tight harmonies and fun stage presence to match; i'm glad they made the trip over from Japan to play. The Shower Scene is a local band from Carbondale, Illinois, who plays really solid emo. they're a fairly new band, but i'm expecting really good things from them in the future.

i wasn't too crazy about Evident Phase. the instrumentalists were competent enough, but their original songs were not all that interesting, and their singer couldn't sing. they weren't the worst band i'd ever heard, but i have no desire to hear them again.

and then...there was Every Avenue. they were one of the worst live bands i have ever seen. their music stole every cliche that Fall Out Boy uses, but performed them significantly less competently. furthermore, the lead singer had a terrible attitude. so terrible, in fact, that he inspired me to create:

the supergig guide to rock and roll etiquette!

1. do not act entitled to the crowd's adoration.

merely standing on the stage does not entitle you to the crowd's love and adoration. you must earn it by playing good music.

this sounds like a simple enough principle, but Every Avenue didn't quite get it. during the show, the singer and one of the guitarists kept asking for the crowd to cheer. their noses stayed turned in the air, their body posture haughty. they carried themselves liked they owned the stage, the club, and all of the people inside the club. that may work in Michigan, where they are from, and where they doubtless know enough people on the music scene that they might be able to get away with acting like they're hot stuff. they may be big fish in the small pond there.

but, they didn't know anyone here. they needed to work for their cheers, and they didn't. they played extremely boring music, and alienated the crowd some more by acting the way they did. they complained about how dead the crowd was, and told us we could do better than that when we did manage a lackluster noise.

it was rather impressive, really, how quickly they lost the crowd. they were the fourth band to play--they played right after Good 4 Nothing and right before Madina Lake. Good 4 Nothing had the crowd jumping, moshing, and going nuts despite the fact that almost no one there knew who they were. the crowd was buzzing--enjoying the high from a really good punk band, and excited to see Madina Lake next. we didn't need much to keep the high going, and Every Avenue failed to deliver even that marginal bit of interest to keep the crowd's pulse going.

and yet, they acted entitled to everyone's love. it wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't act so full of themselves. we would have cheered at least a little if they had just gone up there, been earnest, and played what they had without giving us an attitude. but, they didn't. a rock crowd knows phonies when we see them, and Every Avenue was a bunch of phonies.

2. don't spit water on people.

splashing fresh water on the crowd is okay. it gets hot in the mosh pit. water is refreshing and cool. fresh water is clean. Madina Lake knew this. a lot of the crowd got wet during their set, but this is because Nathan kept opening fresh bottles of water and then tossing them into the crowd. this was very nice of Nathan to do.

but, the key word is fresh. the fact that water is refreshing does not mean that you should take a big swig of water and then spit it out on the crowd. this sounds like a pretty obvious rule of etiquette, but somebody didn't quite get that. and by somebody, of course i mean the lead singer of Every Avenue.

several times during the show, he spit water out on the crowd. i was in the middle, a few rows back from the stage. this means that several times during the show, i had his nasty saliva-tainted water raining down on me. this did not make me happy. i was already frustrated enough at his band because their music was boring and their attitude was haughty. the fact that the lead singer was spitting on me did not endear me any more to them.

if these two rules of etiquette went a little long for you, i'll shorten it. Rocker Etiquette For Dummies? don't be this bagga doucha:



the fans at this show are not off the hook, either. a few bad apples in the crowd necessitate a third rule in this guide to rock and roll etiquette:

3. don't chuck ceiling tiles at people.

this one should be obvious. since i had the occasion to think of such an admonition, it was clearly not obvious to a few people at the Creepy last saturday night.

during Madina Lake's set, the crowd started bopping large balloons around. this is no problem at all. balloons are light, safe, and don't have sharp edges.

the problem is that the Creepy Crawl is a major dive, and the ceiling tiles aren't securely anchored to the ceiling. when the balloons hit the ceiling tiles, sometimes the ceiling tiles would dislodge and fall to the floor. i wasn't worried about this at first. i assumed the people would have the good sense to either keep the tiles on the floor or to whisk them away to the sides of the room as soon as posslble.

but, a few morons in the crowd did not have this good sense. instead, they decided that the proper thing to do would be to chuck the ceiling tiles at other people in the crowd, as hard as possible. of course, no one threw them like frisbees so they would even have a chance of flying out to the sides and staying there. no. they threw the tiles overhand, from overhead, the tiles perpendicular to the floor...so they had the best possible chance to hit people really, really hard.

this meant i got a faceful of ceiling tile.

i was looking in one direction, trying to keep my eye on multiple ceiling tiles. suddenly, from the other direction, a ceiling tile hit me in the face: its edge smacked right down the left side of my face. it hurt! a lot! and even worse, the entire underside and edges of the tile were covered in fibreglass insulation. thus, not only was i sore--i was picking prickly little pieces of fibreglass out of my face for twenty-four hours solid.

there are certain things that are known, anticipated hazards of going to rock shows. i was expecting my ears to be ringing for a day or two. i was expecting a few bruises from being down in the pit. i could have possibly even foreseen the nasty spit-laced water showers. but, a ceiling tile? a day of picking fibreglass out of my face? that came out of nowhere.

74 Minutes or Less #2: Wesley Willis

welcome to the second installment of 74 Minutes or Less.

74 Minutes or Less is the weekly supergig playlist. the concept is simple: i pick a theme, i choose at most 74 minutes of music that fits the theme, and i discuss it here. if you, or i, or anyone else thinks the playlist is so awesome that it deserves to be compiled and burned to CD for posterity, it won't be a problem--because it's no longer than 74 minutes.

this week's theme is Wesley Willis. i love Wesley Willis. a lot. he is one of my favourite musicians. his songs interest, intrigue, and amuse me. his music is bizarre: it basically consists of his incoherent, schizophrenic rantings over a keyboard. he is a true Chicago original; he was originally a street musician, until Dale Meiners discovered him and encouraged him to record and sell his songs.

almost all of his songs follow a very simple format...although not all of them do. most of them are done over a clunky Casio keyboard, although he did record a few albums with the Wesley Willis Fiasco--the Fiasco songs had full rock band instrumentation. the topics of his songs run the gamut. Wesley himself said it best when he stated, "I write songs about people getting killed. I write songs about people getting beaten up. I write songs about people getting taken to jail by the police. But, I also write songs about love and happiness."

my goal is to collect all of his music. he was prolific...he released at least fifty albums. i doubt there exists even a comprehensive list of all of the albums he released; i have been looking for years, and not yet found one. many of his albums were self-released, and he would sell them on the street in Chicago.

i don't have all of his albums yet. i have seventeen of them...a good start, although not exhaustive. so, this may not be the best 74 minutes or less of Wesley's music...but the following songs are best of what i've found in my first seven years of being a Wesley Willis fan. it was almost impossible to whittle my favourite Wesley tunes down to that length, but somehow i managed to do it.

• "It's the End of the Western" (3:14)
• this song makes no sense whatsoever. i have no idea why he wrote it, or what he's trying to get at. it's absurd, even for him. all the verses follow the same theme, the end of certain Old West stereotypes.
  
• "King of Fire" (3:03)
• this song makes even less sense than "It's The End of the Western." the first two verses kind of tell a story...albeit one of a dragon flying around and eventually getting mad at Wesley for no reason. that would almost make sense...as a dragon can be seen as a king of fire. the third verse, however, abandons the dragon story altogether and talks about a guy shooting at a target...or Wesley...or something. this is another song that is great specifically because it is absurd.
  
• "The Termites Ate My House Up" (3:11)
• this song proposes the most unorthodox pest extermination method ever: shooting up a house with a BB gun. not very effective, but you can have an A for effort and creativity.
  
• "My Mother Smokes Crack Rocks" (2:28)
• this song provides one of the most absurdly humourous mental images of any Wesley Willis song. he claims, "my mother smokes that crack like a cigar." even though that's not exactly what it says, the line gives me a mental image of a cigar full of crack. it's stupid and wonderful.
  
• "Firewall the Throttle" (2:48)
• this is another song i like just for the random observations he makes. driving at fifty-five miles an hour? being a safe driver? those things are not really what i think of when i think of firewalling the throttle, but at least he advocates doing it responsibly. i also like his naming of random vehicles like gasoline trucks. it's like a musical rendition of Wesley Willis' urban art.
  
• "Rick Sims" (2:22)
• Wesley Willis likes writing songs about singers and bands. usually he sings about a specific show, although sometimes he just raves in the abstract about how good a singer is. this one falls in the latter category. he passes some very weird compliments in this song. my favourite? "i love the way you cuss the crowd. this means you are telling them something. i love the way you tell those stupid sons of a bitches to fuck off. right on, brother!" in other words, he loves how insulting this singer is to his fans? brilliant!
• "Medley" (2:48)
• most of the songs about shows focus on one show for the entire song. this song, however, contains several mini-songs of that variety--each song covers one band's show. fittingly, he called the song "Medley." it's...self-aware Wesley.
  
• "I'm the Daddy of Rock and Roll" (2:54)
• Wesley Willis occasionally wrote songs about how awesome he was. this is the best of that subset of songs. the final verse, in which he tells the story of his rise to stardom, is quintessential Wesley Willis stream of consciousness: "this is my rock and roll music career God gave me. God gave me this rock music career to keep me busy. back in 1991, i used to hit old people with folding chairs. suddenly i moved to the north side of Chicago in the summer of 1992. it made the rock star out of me at last." it's true...Wesley Willis is the daddy of rock and roll.
  
• "I'm Going on a World Tour" (2:52)
• this is another song Wesley wrote about his music career. it captures the unabashed joy of travelling around, playing music, and making music fans happy. it's such a simple song...but Wesley's best example of really happy mood music.
  
• "Suck A Caribou's Ass" (2:50)
• another one of the Wesley Willis archetypes are what he called bestiality songs. these are his schizophrenic rantings at their most...schizophrenic. "suck a cheetah's dick" is the one most people know...but this one is better. the keyboard accompaniment is cheesily futuristic, and he mentions llamas.
  
• "Suck a Polar Bear's Dick" (2:07)
• another bestiality song, of course. it's not lyrically as amusing as "Caribou"...but he sings it through some kind of processor that makes his voice sound like a robot! that's enough to get it played over and over.
  
• "Beat My Ass" (2:51)
• this song sounds expansive and majestic. that's hard to do with a clunky old Casio keyboard, a song formula, and a request to be beaten up...but he does it.
  
• "Birdman Kicked My Ass" (2:59)
• Wesley Willis sings a lot of songs about getting into fights with superheroes. in most of them, he beats the stuffing out of the superheroes. he beat Batman, Superman, Spiderman...but was no match for Birdman. [really, the only way it would be funnier is if he had been vanquished by Aquaman.] this song has it all: second-tier superheroes, O.J. Simpson references, trespassing, pistol-whipping...all the best elements of a funny story.
  
• "Kris Kringle Was a Car Thief" (3:24)
• this is up with "The Twelve Pains of Christmas" by Bob Rivers as one of my favourite holiday tunes. [can you tell i hate the holidays?] this is a song about Santa Claus doing some unsavory things: stealing a car, cruising West Fullerton Avenue for hookers, and eventually getting caught by the cops. merry christmas!
  
• "Cut the Mullet" (2:55)
• this is one of Wesley's most popular songs for good reason. it's just Wesley Willis telling it like it is: mullets are awful, awful hairstyles, and no one has any business wearing a mullet. it's true..."nobody wants to look at you with that mullet on your head." call it fashion advice for all people.
  
• "Wrigley Field" (2:48)
• the first two verses of this song are overly optimistic--just like every Cubs fan i've ever met. they sing about how the Cubs are on their way to victory. but, unlike most Cubs fans who make these proclamations with a sense of entitlement, Wesley Willis delivers the lines with an almost childish naivete. however, where this song really shines is the last verse. he sings about a game against the Phillies, and ends it with a hearty "Holy Cow!", á la Harry Caray.
  
• "Ricky Gott" (2:44)
• one of Wesley Willis' basic song types is the criminal song: he sings about a person committing a crime and then getting convicted and sentenced for the crime. this criminal song is notable because of the crime he sings about: robbing a grain elevator of $13,000. what a strange place to sing about robbing!
• "Russell Chintell" (2:23)
• this is another criminal song notable for the crime that he chooses. this one is about a guy hijacking an airplane. he refers to the hijacker as "an airplane troublemaker." oh, Wesley...you do have a way with understatement.
  
• "He's Doing Time in Jail" (3:33)
• this is another criminal song. it's a song Wesley Willis did with the Fiasco. this song is the best of his several pieces about the time he was slashed with a box cutter after he got off the #4 Cottage Grove bus. not only does he go through the details of the incident in remarkable detail, but he sounds so satisfied at the end when he sings that the perpetrator is doing time in jail.
  
• "Jadroplov" (2:51)
• this is another criminal song. however, it is one of only two criminal songs of his that i know in which the accused is found not guilty. the alleged crime in this song is rather bizarre, as well: robbing a pulpit of $9,000. his descriptions of the angry preacher are priceless: at the end of the song, he states that "Reverend Henry E. Miller was mad as a mother fucker." the way he over-enunciates that phrase makes it perfect.
• "Larry Nevers/Walter Budzyn" (2:42)
• most of the criminal songs are fictional...or, at least, refer to crimes so ill-documented that the best google-fu will reveal no information about the underlying crime. occasionally, however, he sings about real, well-documented crimes. this song is apt, lucid social commentary: it discusses a real incident of police brutality, when Nevers and Budzyn fatally beat a suspect outside a crack house, and takes the cops to task.
  
• "Richard Speck" (2:26)
• this is another nonfictional criminal song. it covers an infamous Chicago crime: when Richard Speck broke into a house full of nurses and killed eight of them. it's amazing--Wesley Willis gets his facts straight on this one. Like "Nevers/Budzyn", he did his research, distilled the story down to its most salient points, and sang about it. call it...an absurd permutation of the folk song.
  
• "I Broke Out Your Windshield" (2:33)
• this is almost a criminal song...but a very strange variant. this is one in which Wesley claims to have committed the crime. [of course, it's fictional.] this one is about breaking into a car and eventually setting it on fire and killing someone. that's the fundamental absurdity of the song--it's about committing all sorts of heinous crimes with reckless abandon, and yet he continues to brag about the lightest offense in the litany: breaking out the windshield of the car.
  
• "Fuck You" (1:54)
• call it "Take This Job and Shove It" for the next generation. if you've ever been overworked, underpaid, and subjected to a jerk of a boss, this is the song for you. it's a straightforward, angry string of insults...and i dare anyone who wants to quit a job in a blaze of glory to play this song for their boss and then storm out of the office.
• "Move Your Ass" (2:57)
  
• call it "Hit The Road, Jack" meets "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover." it's a string of angrily delivered commands for someone obnoxious to just go away. i love when he screams, "hit the Dan Ryan Expressway, jerk!" usually when telling someone to hit the road, you don't tell them which road to hit.
  
• "You Better Find My Pistol" (2:49)
• this is probably his angriest song. sure, he has far more violent songs and far more vulgarly insulting songs, but never does he scream and growl as angrily as he does in this song. it's enough to make you jump up and start rifling through your closet and your dresser drawer for his Smith and Wesson, just so he stops yelling at you. i also appreciate all of the references to a "karate stick." it's an endearing misnomer...i'm assuming he's referring to a bō, like Donatello of the Ninja Turtles used, but using the right name would violate the entire aesthetic of the song...and of Wesley Willis' music in general.

total time: 73:26.

that was 74 Minutes or Less #2: Wesley Willis. if you've got a thematic idea for a future playlist, comment or email me at superherogirl@gmail.com.