The Perlich Post

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Screaming Bamboo vs. The Embarrassment

Ottawa's legendary Screaming Bamboo knocked out a fine version of "Take Me To The Park" by Wichita's The Embarrassment way back in 1986.

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

The Clash On The Danforth: 40 Years Later

From Alone and Gone author Nick Smash...

It seems hard to believe but The Clash played their first concert in Toronto at The Rex Danforth Theatre 40 years ago next month.

During the month of February, The Toronto Public Library at Pape and Danforth will be hosting a photographic exhibition celebrating this hugely important event in Toronto's music history. The exhibition will be featuring some of the large format posters as displayed in 'Toronto Calling', the 2010 exhibition curated by Nick and Simon White at Steamwhistle Brewery. 1979 was a good year for fans of The Clash living in Toronto as they played 2 gigs while at the peak of their career. The first was at The Rex on February 20th and the second at The O'Keefe Centre on September 26th.

CLASH ON THE DANFORTH AT THE LIBRARY will be a multi media format exhibition using large format photos, collage type posters, original artifacts, video screen photos and old school cassette tapes. I'll be getting back behind the lectern and pontificating about how great these gigs were and what they meant to their fans as the punk scene was changing. The opening night will be Friday (February 1) at The Public Library (701 Pape Avenue – just south of Danforth) from 7pm to 8pm. Copies of "Alone And Gone" and "What You Don't Want Is What You Get" will be available.

Listen to The Clash's performance at The Rex in 1979 below.

New book from Lydia Lunch "So Real It Hurts" due in July

"So Real it Hurts" by Lydia Lunch, published by Seven Stories Press, hits the streets July 9.

Here's the scoop...
"So Real It Hurts is the perfect title for this collection. It's a mission statement. A few bleeding slices straight from the butcher shop. A sampler from an enormous archive of work that will, no doubt, be pored over by grad students, book lovers, film historians, music nerds and straight-up perverts a hundred years from now." – Anthony Bourdain, from the Introduction

Through personal essays, interviews, and poetic verse, punk musician and cultural icon Lydia Lunch claws and rakes at the reader's conscience in this powerful, uninhibited feminist collection. Oscillating between provocative celebrations of her own defiant nature and nearly-tender ruminations on the debilitating effects of poverty, abuse, and environmental pollution, along with a visceral revenge fantasy against misogynistic men, Lydia Lunch presents her exploits without apology, daring the reader to judge her while she details the traumas and trials that have shaped her into the legendary figure she's become.

Inserted between these biting personal essays, Lunch thoughtful cultural insights convey a widely-shared desire to forestall inevitable cultural amnesia and solidify a legacy for her predecessors and peers. Her interview with Hubert Selby Jr. and profile of Herbert Hunke, her short unromanticized histories of No Wave and of the late Sixties, and her scathing examination of the monetization of counterculture (thanks, Vivienne Westwood!) all serve to reinforce the notion that, while it may appear that there are no more heroes, we are actually just looking for heroes in the wrong places. The worthy idols of the past have been obscured by more profitable historical narratives, but Lunch challenges us to dig deeper.