Steve Reynolds Program - Dirty Boots
A defense and/or celebration of Wampus's choices of top 100 songs in the form of prose around 500 words
Angry Intro
How are you? My community is reeling from the news of the bizarre and inexplicable death of 38 year-old Shannon Hanchett, owner of Okie Baking Co./Cookie Cottage, in a jail cell 12 days after the bullshit charges of “obstructing arrest” and “making a false 911 call.” The arresting officer’s affidavit (which part can be read as: “I assumed a position of authority and she did not assume a position of subservience”) acknowledges she was having a mental health episode, but they arrested her and took her to jail anyway. So many questions are unanswered about the whole deal and state agencies are investigating. The only thing known now is two kids don’t have a mother because police and jailers absolutely took the wrong actions.
So we’re all sad and flummoxed and it’s one more event added to a timeline of tragedy here in a climate growing in paranoia and prejudice. Gotta be honest, if you ask me why we’re still living here, I’d answer “inertia” and not much more. And that hurts. I mean, I wrote a book where reviewers said in it Norman was a character. I should be a cheerleader, but it just doesn’t feel right (if it ever did), right now.
Sorry, that just spilled out of me. Thanks for indulging. Now, for something more upbeat.
Song #16
Dirty Boots
by Sonic Youth
In 1990, the news that Sonic Youth signed to a major label felt implausible but not disappointing. They didn’t have the cachet where the scolds of Punk (with a capital P) at Maximum Rock and Roll would call the move “selling out” or “joining the system.” They had already left SST Records for Enigma to put out Daydream Nation. You could tell their desire for dissonant, layered sounds demanded better studios with bigger budgets.
They did the protestations of the independent shedding the prefix “in-” for Goo, the first album on Geffen, by doing some things the indie way. They used a Raymond Pettibon drawing for the cover, sharing the wealth with the intense in-house for SST Records illustrator (until his tragic break with SST’s head, and his own brother, Greg Ginn of Black Flag). They had absolute noise tracks— e.g., “Scooter and Jinx” has the lovely dulcet sound of Thurston Moore’s guitar amp overheating and blowing up. And they counterintuitively put out the singles in an odd order.
Putting out “Kool Thing” first can be defended, sure. I will say that when teenaged me heard that Chuck D of Public Enemy, a band I loved, recorded with Sonic Youth, my imagination went wild. This was going to be the most radical thing I’ve ever heard! But, like hearing the Grateful Dead snoozefest for the first time after reading Tom Wolfe’s excitable prose about them in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or getting Atari Pac-Man only to see something analagous to the Grand Canyon painted by me, I was let down not to hear Chuck D rap (the nerve to expect a rapper to rap!) on the track, but just hear him say “yeah” and “tell it like it is” for a few seconds.
Then the second single was “Disappearer.” Huh? I just had to relisten to even remember this song, and now, five minutes later, I cannot recall the melody or anything. It’s hard to believe they sat on “Dirty Boots”for this. It might have been a record label strategy, like releasing “The Girl Is Mine” before “Billie Jean”? I dunno. They finally did release “Dirty Boots” as the third single, along with a hilarious video.
Sonic Youth is solid with great opening tracks throughout their discography and I’m one who puts “Dirty Boots” over even “Teenage Riot.” The guitar run that opens it is stately and the quiet/loud of its verse to chorus foretells the Nevermind era of Nirvana next year. Steve Shelley’s use of a shaker along with the drums makes the beat even catchier. Kim Gordon’s simple bassline is perfection. And Lee Ranaldo complements Thurston’s guitar with punctuated noises and flourishes that culminate in the great end.
The lyrics are downtown New York phrases strung together, an implication of going to the dark side after enjoying the daylight. “A satellite wish will make it just enough / You'll be making out with a witch in a coffee truck” somehow conveys less meaning than the guitar noise freakout ending that implores to put on your dirty boots, drop the façade of respectability. And that’s the truth of Sonic Youth.
afterwords
This week’s Song I’m Mad I Forgot To Put On The List is “Mike Post Theme” by The Who. Those old coots still had some jewels in their pockets in 2006. Plus it makes me wanna watch Rockford Files.