Review: 'This American Blues' by Ford Madox Ford

Chip and Tony Kinman are the founding member of The Dils, whom you may recall from their poppy punk classic “Mr. Big” and their prominent role in the unforgettable Battle of the Bands sequence of Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke. Forty years later, the Kinmans have founded a new enterprise named after the British writer who penned The Good Soldier and established The English Review. Don’t expect literary aspirations from Ford Madox Ford the band, though (Chip: vocals and guitar; Tony: producing). On their debut LP, This American Blues, the lyrics are almost defiantly simplistic and repetitious, though frustrations with the music industry and the near extinction of Rock & Roll are clear as Chip turns lines such as “Look what they’ve done to my song, ma”, “There’s no rockin’ tonight”, and “images of my generation fade away” into mantras.

For the most part, the hard guitar arrangements, sharp hooks, and Chip Kinman’s anglophile vocals keep these songs soaring, though when things get too stripped down or lean too heavily on the title genre, as they do on the trite “Let’s Work Together” or the bluesy first half of  “If That’s How You Feel”, This American Blues can get a bit pedestrian. Fortunately, most of the songs are dense and fierce enough that everything clicks, whether Kinman sneers through the rip-snorting “I’m Haunted” and “Images of My Generation”, channels Oasis in the hazy “How Does Your Horn Sound Today”, or eulogizes all of the death surrounding Warhol’s Factory in the groovy “Immediate Nico”. This American Blues arrives from Porterhouse Records on blue vinyl.

Review: 'Left of the Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons'

Left of the Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons compiles twenty-two interviews David Ensminger conducted for such landmark ’zines as Thirsty Ear, Maximumrocknroll, and yes, his own Left of the Dial. My interest in his book was sparked by the inclusion of a chat with The Damned’s Captain Sensible, so I was slightly disappointed when I saw how brief that conversation was and how many post-first wavers were featured in Ensminger’s anthology. My disappointment melted when I realized how fine an interviewer our host is and how insightful and articulate his selection of punk icons is.

Left of the Dial offers a fascinating range of experiences from such subjects as The Dils’ Tony Kinman, a first waver who lays out a near academic history of Rock & Roll, and Minuteman Mike Watt, who offers a harrowing account of the illness that nearly killed him. The diversity is impressive too as we get perspectives beyond the white, hetero dudes who constitute the prevailing punk stereotype to dig the experiences of what it’s like to be Latino (El Vez of The Zeros), female (Kira Roessler of Black Flag), gay (Gary Floyd of The Dicks), or black (Freak Smith of Beefeater) in the scene. Ensminger is a good interviewer too, respectful of his subjects but not afraid to call out the somewhat prickly Shawn Stern of Youth Brigade about the apparent weakness of the 1992 comeback record Come Again or query Lisa Fancher of Frontier Records on her sometimes-criticized business practices. Best of all is a riveting mini-oral history of San Francisco’s Deaf Club, an actual gathering place for hearing-impaired patrons to feel the beat from such performers as X, The Dils, Dead Kennedys, and a performance artist who’d receive an enema on stage.

My only gripe is that Ensminger could have oriented the reader better by indicating exactly when his interviews took place. It was a little jarring to be reading along only to discover that 9/11 had just taken place or Bush had just invaded Iraq. But that’s a pretty minor quibble about a selection of interviews so readable that I guess they now qualify as timeless.