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Monday, August 22, 2011

Too much Flipper is never enough.

I'm catching up on posting radio show archives and having the brilliant new idea that won't last a week that I should post whenever I add a new archive, e.g., once a week, and have the post have something to do with the archive. Of course in reality it won't work out that way since my archive manager (hello Mischa!) only manages to upload my archives once a month or so and then he does a whole bunch at once. It's obvious we're related, actually, because we do things the exact same way. Also, there's no way I'll be able to think of something engaging to tell you about every archive and therefore about each Friday I was on the radio. That would imply there's always some sort of special occasion or agenda going on, and there isn't.

None of that interests you. I'm not sure what interests you, but you came to read this, so I'll try to keep interesting you. On Friday, August 12, I picked out a wide range of music to play as usual, but then I started off with Flipper and afterward just wanted to play a bunch more Flipper and then a bunch of pissed off punk rock. I mean, more than usual, since that's what a lot of Tight Pants is about: pissed off punk rock, pissed off soul, pissed off r&b, pissed off spoken word, and pissing on hippies.

If you didn't already know it, Flipper is one of my most beloved bands. I love how they were so punk, they stuck their middle fingers up at punk and hardcore and were punker than anyone. When everyone else was trying to play as fast as possible (thus encouraging the popular conviction that slow music therefore sucked) Flipper was playing slow. Every word they said was clear, so you could follow along without a lyric sheet or a bouncing ball.
If you've never listened to Flipper, I don't know how you ended up here, but may I helpfully recommend that you begin with Flipper's first album, the one known as "Generic," the yellow one that PiL ripped off four years later. It only has nine songs so you won't be too overwhelmed with your short attention span. Also, two of those songs are incredibly long- "I saw you shine" clocks in at over eight minutes, while "Sex Bomb" (which says the same thing over and over again so you get the idea after two or three minutes) is nearly eight- so you could take a break and come back to them later.

I keep getting older and wondering why this album keeps getting better and better. You would think that something so juvenile would someday become too embarrassing to listen to once you get into your 30s but I'm pleased to tell you it doesn't. So August 12's show opened with three in a row by Flipper, including one from this lovely album, and I'm linking the archive for you right now. Thank you for reading. Now listen to Flipper.

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