J.J. Krupert Top 13 Countdown - December '09

The last J.J. Krupert list of the decade motherfuckers. Welcome to the Two Thousand & Teens. Music makes it all easier, or not fucking suck so much, or something. People who don't listen to music are untrustable, and will eventually do you wrong for lack of proper humanity inside themselves. It's not opposable thumbs or the ability to build tools or any of that scientific theorems that distinguish us from the other animals; it's the fact our molecules are rhythmic, dancing protons and neutrons and electrons, creating an energy that you can live within or without or ignore completely and fill up with other things. Music speaks to that rhythm, and each person's proton neutron electron march can vary, meaning when I like screwed and chopped musics but you don't, my electrons have more drag to their asses, while you're more fired up on protons. It's all science, though no studies have proven any of this, because true science can't be proved in a laboratory because laboratories are sterilized and real life shit is never sterile. These, apparently, are the songs that have moved my molecules around inside a little cybertron music mechanism the past month more than others. It's been a slow month since my usual J.J. Krupert Gaypod times are in the truck, going back and forth to work, and work's been non-existent the past 30 days. But these have made the strongest plus/minus play/skip factor in the last billing cycle, please remit.
#1: “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk - Let me immediately clarify by saying I've never of my own volition enjoyed or even listened to this song. But it is a happy one for me. You see, my oldest kid did some riding with her uncle at some sort of Range Rover off-road course thing, and she came back saying she really liked a Kanye West song, "Stronger". I had stolen that long ago from inside the internets back when we were doing the Xpert Whiteboyz thing regularly, so I put it on her gaypod. She was playing it one day when we were riding to ballet class, which is like a 45 minute ride to the cold industrial satellite community of Crozet, and I asked her what about the song she liked, being I hate Kanye West. He is pop sounding enough to get played on urban radio stations 7 times an hour to trick black people into thinking he's some sort of icon pop rap star, and he's off kilter and non-threatening enough to make white people happy, so he's gotten pushed as far better than he really is, in for real terms. And my kid, although a kid, has usually had pretty good tastes in things and been able to see through bullshit. So I asked her what it was about that song she liked, especially considering I also put a few other tracks off that album on her gaypod and she didn't like any of them. Well, it was nothing to do with Kanye but just the weird electronic chorus part. I felt a weight off my shoulders, or at least a temporary reprieve until my kid starts liking shit I think is stupid, because Daft Punk is at least slightly more tolerable than Kanye West. Okay, way more tolerable. If something's going to be gay, I prefer it to be outright gay and not closeted and pretending. So I downloaded the Daft Punk with this song, and put it all on my oldest kid's gaypod, and she loved it, and played it a million times. The thing is, she knows I write about songs that get played the most on my gaypod, and she knows her playing habits, if we share songs between our gaypods, affects my countdown, which she knows I do on a blog, even though she doesn't read it. Hell, we don't really let her play on the internet at all, and never unsupervised, because I know the internet is a manhole cover into the devil's abyss; I'm looking at that retarded evilness every night and laughing about it. But as a parenty, you try to protect your kids. However, she knows I write about the songs, and she asked me to put this on my gaypod so as to force me to have to write about it, even though she won't see this, except she probably will in a few years. But at least now I can delete stupid Daft Punk off my 2 gig gaypod. (And this is what I wrote; so if you google this - or whatever is the search for things way kids do that in the future you come from - Gypsy, I still probably hate this song. But it's better than Kanye West at least, whose futuristic styles look pretty stupid now, don't they? Yeah, just like the '80s were for my age people. Kanye was retro future.)
#2: “Kings of Speed” by Hawkwind - Psychedelic music infused with methamphetamines obviously speaks to me, as I can't get enough of Lemmy era Hawkwind. I know Motorhead has become a great thing in this world of our's, but sometimes I secretly wish Lemmy had won the battle for Hawkwind's soul, along with that dancing chick Stacia (most beautiful semi-famous chick ever in my opinion), and he'd kept making his mark with music into that form of band. Lemmy is an international hero, and were I to become filthy rich beyond belief, one of my first actions would be to just pay Lemmy and Billy Gibbons to hang out together while I had somebody videotape them talking. I'd also get Lemmy to tell me whatever happened to Stacia.
#3: “Superhero” by Ani DiFranco - I cannot rightfully explain why I've been listening to so damn much Ani DiFranco, but I have been, even tonight coming home from Crozet. One theory I have is that as the father of three daughters, the oldest of which is about to hit 11, I'm prepping myself to have the proper back to support their minds' being right and not putting up with a bunch of bullshit from dudes. I'm not old enough to have forgotten what teenage guys think about. Hell, I still think what they think, not as often as when I was younger, but as an older man I do complicate it with elaborate situations and odd fetishes. But beyond brainwashing my children into being a take-no-shit little goddess chick, I don't know, once you get past the whole man-distrusting, borderline lesbianism of early Ani DiFranco, it's some good shit. Strong guitar, mad attitude, and some strange shifts in style and cadence. It's some really good shit, that I can't stop listening to.
#4: "She Said" by Hasil Adkins - This was lower on the list, then the other night I was cooking dinner and playing my gaypod out loud and this song came on and the kids recognize it, but my baby (who is almost 2 so not so much a baby) is my kindred spirit in this house, so me and her and the middle kid who is the wacky one, we'd stand still while Hasil was doing the build up, and then when he went into the "Hooo Haaa Hooo Haaa Haaa"s, we'd do herky jerky dances around the kitchen. We tried to make the oldest kid, who is in her tweens and too cool for pretending to Hunch, to do the herky jerky dancing too, in time with the Hooing and Haaaing. She was having none of it, because she hates all music that sounds like a hoedown to her, and Hasil Adkins falls into that category, but at a very low budget. But the baby was on board, and every time the song ended, she'd go "Genn!" for "again" and we played it again, like eight times in a row until my wife got sick of it too and really when it comes to sensible activities, only me and her and the oldest kid's votes count, so it was 2 to 1, and I had to stop repeating it and doing the herky jerky dance.
#5: “Do the Funky Donkey” by Otis Turner & The Mighty Kingpins - See, we should've been doing the Funky Donkey instead. My bad to my kids, in case they too grow up and end up googling things and finding all the retarded shit I write. In fact, let me just apologize to all three of you here right now. Actually, fuck that. You're lucky to have a dad like me. Shit is bodacious up in the house, and always was. You know that. You wouldn't be what you are today if it wasn't for me and your mama being who we were and still are because you can't change a freebird. Fly high.
#6: “Freedom” by Richie Havens - Yeah, this is the song from the Woodstock soundtrack, and it's just some simple guitar pounding made up shit, but it's a strong song. I actually downloaded like two Richie Havens CDs when I was looking for this, also because some "African Herbsman" song I had been listening to was a dub version of Havens' "Indian Rope Man". I can tell you, from going through the aural processes, that most Richie Havens is not every enjoyable. But man, he was dialed in when he did this song, and made a career out of one moment. You gotta love America. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you want to attack it by making airplanes catch on fire or lose control of themselves. Well, in America, you have the freedom to do that, or at least try and get away with it. We da best.
#7: “Easy” by The Commodores - This song is mellow personified, and makes me want to lay in the bed on a warm spring Sunday morning with the ol' lady, buck naked the both of us, breeze blowing through the curtains, getting nasty as we wanna, slow and easy, taking our time, till like halfway through this song. Then we gotta go fix breakfast for the kids or run errands or answer the calls from the Home Depot card and tell them how we're gonna pay them eventually but we just don't have any money right now. You know the deal. How did Lionel Ritchie do this song and then do nothing else ever in any form that means a damn thing to me now? And how did he make that Nicole kid of his? Perhaps jheri curl juice causes your children's eyes to look like they are being squeezed from out their head, like fetal alcohol syndrome but different like.
#8: “Singer Man” by The Kingstonians - I had downloaded a bunch of Trojan box set CDs from inside the robots, and had a bunch of that shit on my gaypod, and somehow the only one that has survived over the months is this song. I am not really sure why, but something about it does not annoy me like most reggae does fairly soon upon unzipping.
#9: “Monkey David Wine” by David Allan Coe - The early David Allan Coe stuff, Buckstone County Prison and Penitentiary Blues albums in particular, has been my background music the past five months when I walk through the backyard mud to the chicken coop or now to the pig pen with the old Nissan Frontier hood stood up with rebar as their door. This song is wacky, prison-crazed voodoo man David Allan Coe at his ultimate, and this song with "Walkin' Bum" is the best two-song combo any crazy redneck dude could ever hope to be, youtube age or any time. Hasil Adkins could've smoked PCP-laced crack and not come up with shit like "Monkey David Wine", and I love Hasil Adkins. It is amazing amazing retarded white trash from the south where plenty of non-whites influence your daily routines type music.
#10: “Sacalo Sacalo” by Los Diablos Rojos - A selection from The Roots of Chicha: The Psychedelic Cumbias of Peru, which I downloaded when I got into my cumbias rebajadas kick a few months back (basically, screwed and chopped cumbia music). The Roots of Chicha album is cumbia music revolving around the use of the hallucinogenic chicha plant. It's a really fucking great album, and if you have sterile white people friends always playing Buena Vista Social Club when you're over for shrimp enchiladas or fish tacos and Mexican beer, usually something other than Corona since that would be too obvious for sterilized white people, probably Negro Modelo, well you can bust this out as an amped out alternative when you invite them over to have pulled pork pupusas and some hot as fuck tamales with a case of Sol beause it's the cheapest Mexican beer available at the closest Food Lion, at least in the bottle. You could rock the 12-pack cans of Modelo Especiale with lime slices stuffed into the top. If you at all like the concept of "world music" but hate the didjeridoo Putamayo crap most world music you seek out ends up being, I suggest you google searh The Roots of Chicha and download that bitch pronto from some music stealing blog.
#11: “Alone & Dying” by Hank Williams III - One of the best things I did with Audacity was take the second disc of Straight to Hell and break it up into individual songs. That second CD is the greatest shit ever, drugged out screwed and chopped degenerate country music, and I wish an entire genre of music developed from it. Hell, I've done my part, because I'd say my slowed down classic rock breakbeat pitch shifted hobo raps I do in the camper are closer to that second disc of Straight to Hell in intent and delivery than it is to most anything else on this earth. I was really disappointed with Tricephus' last CD, as it kinda of seemed like coasting off the fumes of how bad ass Straight to Hell was. Then again, it's probably hard to follow up a fucking classic like that. Still though, I know Hank III struggles with the country schtick because he wants to do the rock shit, but the simple fact of the matter is there's nothing outrageously original about the rock shit he and Assjack do, which is not to say it's bad, just that it's part of a larger genre of trashy hillbilly punk, along the lines of Antiseen and pretty much any band that used to be involved with the Carbon 14 magazine I used to write for. But the degenerate country shit, there's nothing like that out there. Sterilized pseudo-outlaw degenerate stuff like Jamey Johnson gets popular as fuck on country radio for simply mentioning cocaine or jail, just barely. Hank III's fucked up country is the real deal, and it makes me sad for rural America that more people don't love it. Toby Keith's popularity is just another sad sign as to how badly Wal-Mart has Wal-martinized us of any real soul in our lives.
#12: “Fire on the Mountain” by The Grateful Dead - This has somehow survived far longer in the corners of my gaypod than I expected. Honestly, I was surprised it was still on there. But I ain't gonna front, I dig this song if it sneaks up on me without me knowing it's about to play.
#13: "The Lamb" by Aphrodite's Child - This was strange prog-rock album I found inside the internets about Babylon, which I had assumed was gonna be weirder and more Behold a Pale Horsey than it ended up being. Still, parts of it have survived for months on my gaypod, because it's fucking weird. I am no fan of prog rock because to me that means "fucking nerdy rock music" with lyrics in iambic pentameter and time changes that add nothing except complications to a good time. But Aphrodite's Child is worth checking out if you're into that nerd rock type bullshit from '70s.