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January 10, 2008
Numerology: Special 38s
Lou Reed maligned the number 37 in “Femme Fatale,” but some interesting 37 songs popped up once I started looking. While the field for 38 is similarly scant, once again, some odd nuggets have appeared in my pan. (Somebody helpfully suggested .38 Special to me, and in all honesty, I can still get into “Hold on Loosely” much more than is wise to admit here, but this is about songs, people, otherwise Matchbox 20 and Level 42, etc., would be eligible to win something based on their numerical names alone, and that I could not abide.)
I can definitely abide Divididos, an Argentine rock institution that kicked off its 1991 major-label debut, Acariciando Lo Aspero (“caressing the rough”), with “El 38,” a spirited mix of garage band chords and tuneful shouted vocals. But would they abide me? The ironically named Bristol, England outfit known as the Pop Group (formed in 1978) revered chaos, cacophony, and confrontation; the instrumental single “3:38” sounds like someone playing a dub record and a funk record simultaneously through an underwater tape deck while someone farts in the water. Which is not to say it’s bad. I regret that “4,738 Regrets” by Trans Am is numerically ineligible for the 38 spot, because it is surpassingly gorgeous. Needless to say, if this list does reach 4,738, my money’s on Trans Am to win in a walk.
Hot Springs - "38th Adventure"
High praise goes to Canada’s own Hot Springs, whose “38th Adventure,” the final track off last year’s debut CD Volcano, finds the band adding a playful touch of glam flavor to its edgy indie rock, with Giselle Webber’s vocals bringing to mind the raspy warble of Feargal Sharkey’s work in the Undertones and a frayed quality reminiscent of Karen O.
Continuing with the Canadian subplot, “38 Years Old” by Canadian Rock Hall of Fame members the Tragically Hip merits consideration. (The Hip, as they are known, were not named after the Elvis Costello line in “Town Crier” (‘teddy bear tragic and tragically hip’) as I had thought, but rather from a line in a Michael Nesmith film). Is it mere coincidence that two of my five 38 songs are from Canadian outfits? I mean, what are the odds? (The Odds, actually, was a ‘90s band, from Vancouver. This is getting weird.) Anyway, “38 Years Old” is an earnest minor-key twanger about a dude who’s reached that lofty age and never kissed a girl. It’s sad all right, but our glowering 38 winner says, “You want sad? Here’s sad.”
That’s right: 38’s a bummer. Following the dark night of the soul of our previous winning number, the no. 38 song takes a similarly unsparing look at human beings behaving badly. The title of the winning song, “38,” by Revolting Cocks, refers to the number of people killed in the Heysel Stadium disaster, a 1985 football hooliganism-related catastrophe that somehow isn’t the worst one ever. (That would take place three years later, at the Hillsborough Football Ground, where more than twice as many fans would be crushed or suffocate to death.)
The final game of the European Cup at Heysel Stadium in Brussels hadn’t started, but with the title at stake and a history of bad blood between the two clubs, the war had already begun. When hordes of Liverpool fans jumped the chicken-wire barrier that had separated the factions, Italian fans of the Juventus club retreated until they could go no further. Then a retaining wall at the edge of the crumbling stadium buckled under the added weight, and there was a hellish crush. In the end, 39 people died; clearly RevCo went to work on this song before the final toll could be assessed.
As “38” reminds us, a song that commemorates a horrific event doesn’t have to sound like “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning.” This is no lament; in fact, the message is that this sort of thing happens all the time. Get used to it. Dance to it. Now, I’m not saying I would wish all songs about disasters, floods, and levee breaks to have an industrial rock sound, but in this case, the harsh, unforgiving beats are the perfect expression of being pulverized, as are the repeated words “38/38/There were 38,” which pummel the listener like a taunting jackhammer. Later on, in a popular early sampling move, (think: “Nineteen” by Paul Hardcastle) a news-clip voice is incorporated, in this case, one that sounds a bit like the actor Brian Cox, telling us in a plummy voice, “I can tell you the official number of the dead is now at 38.”
As much as I’d like to be offhand about it, I must confess that it feels funny writing about the Revolting Cocks. Revolting Cocks has to be the most profane band name in history. (Yes, certain death-metal/speed metal outfits have had more disgusting names, but I don’t count them because of my inability to stand the entire genre.) The real credit goes to Butthole Surfers for opening up the floodgates for bands to employ anatomically intimate names. As the story goes, before settling on that infamous moniker, the Surfers would amuse themselves by choosing a new, outrageous name for every gig they played. So one night it would be Nine Foot Worm Makes Own Food, next week it was Abe Lincoln’s Bush or the Inalienable Right to Eat Fred Astaire’s Asshole. But one fateful night, in Austin in1982, at the last minute they introduced themselves as the Butthole Surfers, after a song Gibby Haynes had just written, and the namescape of rock was forever changed. So far as I can tell, no band of any stature had ever had a name like that before. Sure, Steely Dan was Burroughsian for artificial johnson (wasn’t he a basketball player from Canada?), and Buzzcocks was pretty in-your-face, but with a name like Butthole Surfers, there is no ambiguity. Subconsciously or not, this name must have emboldened other bands. Pretty soon, in the next state over from Texas, in fact, you had Wayne Coyne & Co. using the tamer yet somehow related name of Flaming Lips, and in 1985, Al Jourgensen, the Neil Young of industrial rock—named one of his side projects Revolting Cocks. That same year, Stockholm garage rockers the Stomachmouths named themselves after the Swedish approximation of “intestinal valve” a term they’d found in a translation of Confederacy of Dunces. Looking back on it, this clearly was the heyday of the grotty-name trend.
Surfers kingpin Gibby Haynes has had no regrets about sticking with the Butthole name all these years. “My mother even says the name now,” he once said. “It took her ten years, but I’ve heard her say it now three times about.” I wonder if Al Jourgensen can say the same thing.
Numerology is our pal Dave's ill advised quest to find the definitive song for every number from one to a hundred. It's starting to get a bit tricky.
Previously: No. 1, 2-4, 5-7, 7 (counterpoint), 8, 9, 10/11, 12/13. 13 (counterpoint), 14/15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26/27, 28 , 29 , 30, 30 (counterpoint), 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37
Posted by David Klein at January 10, 2008 06:20 PM
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Comments
Yeah, good thing for that rule, otherwise matchbox twenty would have it wrapped up.
Posted by: Randall Monty at January 11, 2008 08:33 AM
Dave doesn't even want to have to type their names! Except that he just did...
Posted by: Jeff K at January 11, 2008 01:10 PM
I've determined that It's mostly a bad thing to have a number in your name if the number is over 5 (see the Dave Clark __ , the Jackson __ , the Count __. etc.) After that you have diminishing returns--Heaven 17? Ok, maybe. But Level 42 and the bands that need not be mentioned again? Front 242 was that rare exception.
Posted by: david at January 11, 2008 01:19 PM
Think Merry Swankster is in the large part fantastic but your writer David should really check his facts or check the way he writes. The most glaring error is grotesque and downright offensive. The Hillsborough disaster had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOTBALL HOOLIGANISM. It was caused by appaling crowd management by police and dangerous fencing erected within the stadia. I watched people dying on TV. Among them a guy I knew from school. You can guess this is a sore point.
http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/
Similarly the football violence at the Heysel stadium disaster was also exacerbated by police violence against fans (an easy oversight due to the Italian police's reputation as a sharing, caring police force!) and poor stadium/crowd management standards. No excuses for those fans involved but the authorities seemed to brush the entire incident under the carpet.
http://www.popmatters.com/sports/features/050502-football.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster
Prior to this match there is no history of bad blood between Liverpool and Juventus and after the tragic events both clubs have worked hard to heal the wounds of that night. Liverpool even sold their legendary striker Ian Rush to the Turin club after which he returned to Liverpool a few years later.
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/lfc_story/heysel/
Simply do your research please rather than offend people who mostly admire what you are doing.
Thanks for all the great writing and music
Simon
Posted by: Simon Saint-Simon at January 12, 2008 06:02 PM
Maybe I misstated the Hillsborough tragedy--I should have said it was the worst soccer-related disaster. But unless wikipedia is lying, there was plenty of bad blood between the teams. The year before, Liverpool fans were assaulted en masse trying to get back from a match. And as far as Heysel goes, there is plenty of documentation to support the idea that the charge of the Liverpool fans against the Italians caused the collapse.
Posted by: david at January 13, 2008 09:42 AM
the bad blood was between Liverpool fans and those of Roma, from the year before. many apologies. it's hard to keep the factions straight.
Posted by: david at January 13, 2008 11:11 AM
Some other bands that (possibly) followed/went along with the Butthole Surfers' trend: Porno for Pyros, Hole, Limp Bizkit, Anal Cunt (How'd you miss that one?), Hootie and the Blowfish, and my all-time least favorite, which actually predates the Surfers, the Slits.
Concerning the soccer deaths, you can't really approach the topic without mentioning the Peru/Argentina game from 1964. The riot/panic following a questionable referee call left some 300 people dead. Not "hooliganism" in the traditional sense, but catastrophically sad nonetheless.
Posted by: Randall Monty at January 14, 2008 12:04 AM
I was alluding to Anal Cunt when I said certain bands had more disgusting names--but your additions are spot-on. Randy, you really know your grotty rock names. And indeed, a comprehensive piece on soccer tragedies wouldn't have missed the Peru-Argentina game.
Posted by: david at January 14, 2008 07:52 AM
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