Postie was particularly kind to me this morning, laid up in bed.
First, he drops round a new collection of Peter Bagge strips - Everybody Is Stupid Except For Me, a compilation of the notorious Seattle libertarian's politically (and sexually) charged comics for Reason magazine (presumably Peter is able to return to adult themes, now his daughter is grown up). It's great. So colourful (always my favourite part of Pete's comics) and acerbic and smart-ass, but with a heart and purpose behind the bickering and keenly observes caricatures. It's very post 9/11 (or post 7/11 as the girl in the Optus store would have it, while trying to explain away the Australian government's stupid security measures). It's very "man on the soapbox" (who knows he's right but is too damn lazy to do much about it). It's too early to say now, but right now I'm thinking it's perhaps my favourite stuff of his, full stop - better even than the Comical Funnies stuff, or even Neat Stuff. Really. He ought to collaborate with me more, though.
Second, he delivers up Vera Ramone King's Poisoned Heart, a somewhat abbreviated and understandably patchy account of her years spent married to Dee Dee Ramone. The photos are great. Indeed, they're so good you kind of wish the designer would've been more imaginative with the layout and turned the whole affair into more of a scrapbook along the lines of Lester Bangs' Blondie outing. No one can deny Vera's claim on her part of the story, either. A few more details (dates, places) would've been nice but... hey, I think I'm gonna reserve judgment until I have a chance to properly read it. Right now, it's just a thrill to have another Ramones book on my desk.
Lastly, there's a new Shonen Knife album to enjoy, Super Group, as colourful as a Pete Bagge cartoon, as deceptively simple and melodic as an early Ramones album, as cute and undeniably lovable as a Helen Love or Heavenly A-side. Puppets, apples, farmyard scenes! Monsters, BMX Bandits, beautifully composed three-chord naive pop! Every vocal is striving. Every chord feels like it's the final chord. Everything and everyone is colour-coded. There's even a version of my own particular karaoke bugbear Wings' 'Jet' right at the close, which is clearly pure and utter fandom... and there ain't nothing wrong with that.
I was initially attracted to Shonen Knife because... well, why wouldn't you be? A three-piece Japanese girl group originating around 1982 (their first US release was as a K Records cassette), a full decade easy before Tarantino and the gang got in on the act, and all the more endearing for their clumsiness. I interviewed them in the Melody Maker offices, and they reduced not only me but the entire staff to a blushing gang of "hysterical nine-year-old girls at a Beatles concert" (to borrow a phrase that Kurt Cobain once said to me). The interview later got reproduced in a couple of academic feminist texts about codifying women in rock, but I do feel that the authors somewhat deliberately misinterpreted my words. If my friend over at Archived Music Press could get around to reproducing the original, that would be grand.
Anyway. Seems singularly appropriate I was sent all three together because there's a clear link. Joey Ramone would've loved Shonen Knife, for sure. Peter Bagge does, I'm certain. And... man, this life is great sometimes, isn't it?
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