Blurbing For The Weekend 1/17/25

Despite knowing almost all the classic line-up Can albums for decades, it’s only via Spotify that I wandered upon “Turtles Have Short Legs,” a stand-alone single released in Germany back in 1971 alongside Tago Mago, but left off any reissues until The Singles in 2017. It’s fantastic, and I’m dumbfounded that Spoon (the label named after the Can song, not the band named after the Can song) never included it on one of those CD reissues us coolest kids chased down back in the day. If you haven’t gotten around to hearing “Legs,” buckle up for something breezier and catchier than anything on Tago Mago, but still audibly recognizable as Can. Those snaky guitar leads! The jittery beat! Damo Suzuki only kind of making sense! Sounds like they’re going for that Geggy Tah/Soul Coughing money a quarter century before its time. And now the song is over fifty. Wild.

I’ve known Stereolab’s “Jenny Ondioline” about as long as I’ve known Can, with Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements still my favorite of their full-lengths. I only recently discovered how much it owes to Neu’s “Hallogallo,” though. The Marvin Gaye estate would have rightly sued (imagine Laetitia Sadier pulling a Robin Thicke and saying “Tim Gane wrote it, yo. I was high!”). Even more recently did I learn they filmed a music video for it in a goddamn field. When I compare this all-too-earthly clip to the surreal, abstract images the song inspired in my head from my adolescence on…I get why I some people resent the music video on principle.

Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise And Fall Of SST Records is recommended if you admire Jim Ruland’s desire to reference every single SST release, but can forgive how blatantly albums are duly checked off without detail by the end. And if you’re super-excited to learn exactly how every city in the South Bay has had an association with the label. And if you don’t mind how the Descendents kinda get shorted. And if you can handle Greg Ginn repeatedly taken to task for failing to give back rights or grab the reissue bull by the horns, while his potentially criminal failings as a parent are left unmentioned (if you’re going to shade a guy for a solipsistic indifference to others, don’t hedge!). From my perch in Long Beach, where I eagerly await next month’s Saccharine Trust show, I definitely qualify as the target audience. There is mondo detail here about the nuts & bolts of the scene that I’m glad to now know. But I can’t swear the book will make someone care if they don’t already.

Who Let The Dogs Out, the debut album by the Lambrini Girls, gets a fresh sound out of old punk tricks, but is shockingly dated lyrically: the right issues met with a grab-bag of familiar platitudes. After complaining men talk too much about weightlifting, expect sex for being nice, merely repost feminist content, don’t apologize or actually work to make women feel safe, I seriously expected “Big Dick Energy” to mention that we always leave the toilet seat up. One song is inspired by a 15-year-old Kate Moss quote, and another is named “No Homo.” How old is the lyricist, anyway? Obviously, I’m not the target audience, and plenty might find them cathartic despite the cursory, impersonal nature of the social critique. While they’re no X-Ray Spex, the hollering and riffage is at least Rezillos-level fun. I agree with Pitchfork that the best in show is easily “Cuntology 101,” which taps into the musicality of seeing you next Tuesday, so the song doesn’t live or die on its potency as an op-ed. 

And now, two entries into my canon of POPCORN CLASSICS. Both with spoilers!!

You’re Next. A rich WASP family’s murderously brutal meltdown is thrown a curveball by an Australian final girl raised by a doomsday prepper. I’m shocked I haven’t written about this Adam Wingard film yet. Did I really only talk about the subtext of narcissism/sociopathy in Facebook comments somewhere? Either way, I want to go on record about what a fantastic mix of violent set-pieces and passive-aggressive ensemble work this film has. The cowardice, the cruelty, the cluelessness, the contempt between loved ones, all masterfully revealed between crossbow attacks. I couldn’t give two shits about his directorial efforts, but Joe Swanberg is such a perfect asshole in horror movies. The platonic ideal of a big, clueless dope you don’t wanna see die just so you can keep waiting for that eventual rapture. Though I’ve seen Next plenty of times since its theatrical run in 2011, I only just got around to learning “Looking For The Magic” isn’t the first track on any Dwight Twilley albums. They should have shown a CD-R, or made clear the player was repeating track 2 of Twilley Don’t Mind. And, besides “Magic” and the band’s first hit, “I’m On Fire,” Twilley and company rarely went for that pop-rock echofest energy that resembles Spoon more than anyone else today.

Promising Young Woman. A depressed ex-med student in mourning, taking her anger out on would-be date-rapists, gets a chance at true love and true vengeance. Some might find the treatment of rape culture too cutesy or cynical, especially from a visual standpoint (I’ve yet to see director Emerald Fennell’s follow-up Saltburn). But lead Carey Mulligan taps into a subtle sadness I find really affecting here. Acting on her contempt for the men who crushed her friend’s spirit and primarily see women as sexual conquests doesn’t bring Cassie Thomas fulfillment; it’s just the only act she can find any value in. Bo Burnham is distressingly good as her would-be suitor, revealing the self-serving limits of a “nice guy.” Meanwhile, Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Max Greenfield have lots of fun as total worms no one would think were nice (Alison Brie, though having less fun, conveys the faux-sisterly “lean in” mentality of the complicit). The climax is as brilliant as it is distressing, forcing the audience to consider what it perceives as “asking for it” in terms of self-preservation. Woman is a genuinely anti-heroic dark comedy, acknowledging the question of whether justice for others is worth the effort and sacrifice it requires, and then going for it anyway.

All questions, qualms and quietly brave expressions of admiration can be sent to anthonyisright at gmail dot com.