Pure Punk Picks
Bored – Destroy All Monsters
“When I woke up this morning I was really bored. (2x)
When I woke up this afternoon I was so bored.
When I woke up in the evening I was really bored, really bored.
I WAS BORED! I WAS BORED! I WAS BORED!”
Most mornings I awake I’m not really bored. More often than not, I’m struggling with a hangover or allergies or just, with the fact, of being alive for another day.
In a life that I have to try not to think of the inherent, senseless cruelty of it all – in nature, in human nature and the inhuman nature of it all, as well.
And then I go off to my job where the main requirement of me seems- is to be bored.
I won’t bore you with the details but my job is calm, relaxing- and as a middle-aged man I’m fine with this- but this song called “Bored” I feel is anything but that for me.
Destroy All Monsters was a band Ron Asheton led, after the first break up of Iggy & The Stooges, for which he was the guitarist. He rejoined The Stooges for their third album “Raw Power”, but then he was their bassist.
I was lucky enough to see a reunion Stooges show with Ron on guitar and his brother, Scott, on drums- which was the original lineup with only Mike Watt replacing the original bassist who had long passed away.
And then lucky enough again, thanks to the generosity of Andy Bang buying the broke Slimedog a ticket, to see the Raw Power lineup fully intact, with James Williamson on guitar and Ron on bass.
No matter how many times I had seen Iggy with great players, to see him do these songs with the guys who actually first played these songs, was noticeably better- they got the essence and sound of the original recordings, effortlessly.
And Ron, being a movie buff, chose the title of a 1968 Japanese Godzilla movie where “female aliens take control of Earth’s monsters and begin using them to destroy the human race,” to name this band.
Seems like a good plan by the female aliens to me and seemed like a great name for a band to Ron at the time and I agree.
But I guess this Detroit band actually existed from 1973 to 1985. And my biggest rock writer influence, Lester Bangs, referred to them as “anti-rock,” which I take it, that he meant against the dull rock establishment.
And this band took the psychedelic, garage music of The Stooges along with their experimental side to create some awesome music.
It sounds like an outtake from The Stooges first album mixed with an out take from their second “Funhouse”.
And this band consisted of all Detroit members, including Michael Davis from the Mc5.
While being fronted by an original sounding singer, Niagra, who had a bit of Patti Smith, Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spec and maybe, Exene Cervenka from X.
Though her voice is unique as it switches wildly from ennui to desperation during the course of the song.
This song bops along with a garage rock/Bo Didley beat with music that builds up with energy to a chorus that explodes and then ebbs and flows again, augmented by a jazzy/bluesy sax poking its head into corners
at the end of lines.
I saw Destroy All Monsters play at The Rat in the late seventies. I don’t recall much about it but I do remember Niagra arriving there almost right before the set and her appearing to be a bit timid.
I guess she went on to become a respected artist after her stint as a singer in an unrespected punk scene.
But the few songs she recorded I think are really great.
“You’re not there, you’re not anywhere. I’ll go anywhere. I’ll do anything ‘CAUSE I’M BORED!” She screams towards the climax of the tune.
How can a song with such a whiny, petulant plea of being bored be so fun and exciting?
Maybe because it’s one that completely expressed the negativity and nihilism of the times, where popular music was so lame, where music rock and normal lives seemed so complacent and dreary that we’d “go anywhere, do anything” to escape the gray, bleak lives we lived whether in Detroit, New York, London or Boston.
Life was safe and unchallenging when I was very young. I had shelter and food and no worries and was told I should be grateful and I was.
But it felt to me that I lived a life in black and white- safe and uninteresting. And then I discovered music and then art and later, poetry and literature and then my life took on a hue of technicolor splendor.
And after that I was seldom bored.
Unless, of course, I was at work.
(Slimedog)
