Matador Playlist(s) 6/11/15, 6/25/15, 7/2/15

11 Jul Matador Playlist(s) 6/11/15, 6/25/15, 7/2/15

Posted at 04:13h in Music, Playlist by inkyinkinc

Signs and Wonders, Gentle Reader(s), Signs and Wonders. We live in extraordinary times. Things are happening. Lots of things. The measure of these many things will require significant passage of time in order for the fullness of their significance to become apparent, but some of these things have an immediate effect. Two such things came in the form of rulings handed down by the Supreme Court of this land a couple of weeks ago: A stunning rebuff to the challenges to our president’s health care initiative and an epochal endorsement of the legality of same sex marriage. The former ends a challenge that has been brewing for only a few years but the latter is a landmark decision that has been generations in the making. Despite these setbacks to the regressive/repressive/conservative agenda no one should delude themselves by thinking that the forces of darkness will quietly fold their tents, take down their evil banners and fade back into the gloom from whence they arose. Quite the contrary. Many amongst the defeated will take these reversals of fortune as incentive to redouble their efforts to impose their fearful morality upon the lives of others (and no, I’m not talking about ISIS). Some may decide that the time to resort to more extreme measures is nigh. Celebrate, indeed, but the old adage remains as true as ever: One of the costs of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Unrelated to the events mentioned above, one person who decided that the time to resort to extreme measures had come was a sad, delusional failure by the name of Dylann Storm Roof. The result of Mr. Roof’s horrific and craven stab at direct activism has not been a race war, as he had hoped, but rather the opening of a further chapter in America’s reckoning with the terrible price of its historical dance of death with racism and slavery. The slaughter at the Emmanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston has prompted a major upswell in calls for the reconsideration of the iconography of the Confederacy. This time around the questioning of the true meaning and significance of the Confederacy and its symbols has a strongly bipartisan component. This is potentially significant, especially as we head into the gaping maw of the next presidential election cycle.

The critical consideration of the Confederacy and its legacy has a degree of personal resonance as Your Humble Narrator is, by birth and by (partial) heritage, a southerner—albeit, a New Orleanian, which is not entirely the same thing. As a young lad, I traveled from New Orleans to a small town in Wisconsin every summer with my family. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, the iconography of the Confederacy was omnipresent, in cafes, gas stations, convenience stores along the highway, Stuckey’s, etc. Just as the Nazi swastika was graphically compelling to me when I was in grade school, the Confederate battle flag appealed to my adolescent sensibility. I had no real understanding of what either of them meant or that they might be offensive or hurtful to anyone. A popular item along southern highways was a cheap toy version of the gray Confederate infantry soldier’s slouch hat. On more than a few occasions I begged my parents to buy me one but they always refused. In the early ’70s on a school field trip to the Louisiana state capital building in Baton Rouge I found that the gift shop at the observation deck in the top of the tower sold Confederate battle flag license plates, miniature cotton bales, and cigarette lighters picturing the defeated but defiant cartoon Confederate general with sword and drooping flag and the motto ‘Hell No, I Ain’t Fergettin’!’ By that point in time I was sufficiently aware of the meaning of it all to be amazed and offended

Not quite the version I recall from 1972, but close enough.

New Orleans, my benighted hometown, despite its location in the Deep South, is in many ways not as stereotypically ‘southern’ as other places which, by geographical reckoning, would be considered ‘northern’ in comparison. Nonetheless, there is no lack of commemorative statuary and nomenclature to be found around the City That Forgot to Care. In my personal geography and that of many inhabitants of the central city the primary locus of Confederate iconography was (since 1884), and is, Lee Circle—the traffic roundabout that serves as the approximate demarcation line between Uptown and Downtown New Orleans. Perched atop a 90-foot column of Tennessee marble on a circular grassy knoll above the streetcar tracks, a monumental 18-foot, 7,000-pound bronze likeness of the great general hisself, Robert E. Lee, stares resolutely north with arms folded. Lee’s expression is difficult to ascertain from street level—is it regretful? Angry? Proud? Defiant? The posture of the statue and its northerly orientation suggests to me a sort of stoic wistfulness. Whatever might be on the old man’s mind, for denizens such as myself the only practical implication of the statue of the general was to indicate what direction north was, for the usual compass coordinates are largely meaningless in a town where if you go far enough Uptown you end up Downtown and vice versa.

The point is, Lee Circle never really had much meaning for me beyond its significance as a scenic landmark. The fact that it was a monument to the Confederacy seemed more of a sad joke than anything else. After all, this is a place dedicated to one of the most famous losers in American history. It never really occurred to me that the former Tivoli Circle and its lofty inhabitant might have a more profound meaning for my fellow New Orleanians of African American heritage. To my way of thinking, Lee Circle was just… there.

For a lot of people Lee Circle is not just… there. Lee Circle means something above and beyond a scenic roundabout with a statue of a sad, forgotten hero from a sad, forgotten war. Like the cartoon general on the cigarette lighter, a whole lot of folks into both sides of the bargain ain’t fergettin’ neither. Nor should they. However, the argument that the Confederate battle flag and associated regalia are simply symbols of some corrupt concept pitched as ‘Southern Heritage’ or that the entire Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression as it is sometimes referred to south of the M-D Line) was an internecine squabble about states’ rights is, well, a gigantic load of bullshit. That’s what’s called a ‘fact,’ Gentle Reader(s).

Hizzoner, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, making a point.

So, when, on June 24, Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans called for the statue of General Lee to be removed from the former (and perhaps future) Tivoli Circle that meant something too. “Symbols really do matter,” the Mayor said. “Symbols should reflect who we really are as a people. We have never been a culture, in essence, that revered war rather than peace, division than unity.” Amen, Mayor Landrieu. Signs and Wonders, Gentle Reader(s), Signs and Wonders.

YHN has been taking a bit of break from InkyInkInc duties as of late, but I am returned. Playlists o’ plenty lurk below.

Matador Playlist 6/11

Grammar of Life – Charles Bukowski
Song for Zula – Phosphorescent
The Chemicals (feat. Brian Aubert) – Garbage
Shanghai Girls – IO Echo
Hypnotize – the White Stripes
I Can’t Get Next To You – the Temptations
The Museum of Broken Relationships – Veruca Salt
El Paso – Marty Robbins
Limo Wreck – Soundgarden
The Monkey – Dave Bartholomew
Rehab (Hot Chip Remix) – Amy Winehouse
Downtown – Alex Chilton
Psychobilly Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – the Quakes
Who Knows – Band of Gypsies
Interstate Love Song – Stone Temple Pilots
No Reply – the Beatles
Motorcycle Leather Boy – Guitar Wolf
(Hey Baby) Que Paso – Texas Tornados
Burn – the Cure
Rock, Rock, Rock – Jimmy Cavello & the Houserockers
Since I’ve Been Loving You – Led Zeppelin
Rat Bastard – the Shods
Marquee Moon – Television
Rockin’ Rufus – Ramon Maupin
Pulled Up – Talking Heads
Cissy Strut – the Meters
A Mind of Her Own – Pedro the Lion
Dig Up Her Bones – the Misfits
Baby Blue – Badfinger
Where Eagles Dare – the Misfits (for Birthday Boy Gabe)
Summer Wind – Frank Sinatra
Jealous Again – Black Flag
California Girls – the Beach Boys
The Meek – Bad Brains
No Excuses – Alice In Chains
Machine Gun Blues – Social Distortion
Slap Jack Flappy – Flat Duo Jets
This Is Radio Clash – the Clash
Human Fly – the Cramps
All I Know – Screaming Trees
Ch-Check It Out – Beastie Boys
I’ll Be Your Man – the Black Keys
Burn In Hell – Two Cow Garage
Hologram – Urinals
Fortunate Son – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Neat Neat Neat – the Damned
I Got the Feeling – James Brown
Son of a Gun – the Vaselines
Your Cheatin’ Heart – Hank Williams
Pushing Up Daisies – the Black Belles
Birthday – the Beatles (Happy 25th Gabe!)
Jump Around – House of Pain
Dig Me Out – Sleater-Kinney
Just Got Paid – ZZ Top
100% – Sonic Youth
1970 – the Stooges
I Put A Spell On You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Nicotine Fit – Voodoo Glow Skulls
Immigrant Song – Led Zeppelin
Icky Thump – White Stripes
3’s and 7’s – Queens of the Stone Age
Nearly Lost You – Screaming Trees
Fight the Power – Public Enemy
Panama – Van Halen
Borstal Breakout – Sham 69
The Body In Rainfall – Wild Nothing
Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie
Suffragette City – David Bowie
This Charming Man – the Smiths
The End of the World – the Cure
Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups
Wiped Out – OFF!
All Day and All Of The Night – the Kinks
Freeway Jam – Jeff Beck
Pusherman – Curtis Mayfield
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat – Jeff Beck
World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams
Buona Sera – Louis Prima
Happy Trails – Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (feat. Trigger on Martian Toe Trumpet)
Taxi – Bryan Ferry