Zach Tabori – JFK
We all need heroes, I suppose. But be careful who you worship! You might find yourself spending the next decade digging through the tens of thousands of documents released by the U.S. administration about the JFK murder(s).
I’m told by reliable sources that it’s not exactly a page-turner. Oswald doesn’t come back in Act III to tell you that he’d teleported himself behind the grassy knoll. But punk provocateur and humorist Zach Tabori’s got the real scoop.
In a time of conspiracy theories played to the beat of the evening news, trust people when they tell you who they are. Or, in the case of the Kennedy Family, trust the numerous biographers.
Zach Tabori catchy, psychotic, factory punk “JFK” is a song about worshipping historical figures, especially those who shared a great admiration for post-Weimar Germany. Tabori makes “JFK” sound like someone using an electric guitar as a nail gun. The chorus is a new kind of catchy, the kind that makes you have spontaneous bouts of vertigo. It’ll make the punks buy a library card. I hear the Kennedys still owe Hofbrau one beer mug nicked by JFK while on his Grand Tour.
Carousel – 1977
I do celebrate something that’s nothing more than a myth here at Alt77. Yes, the “77” is exactly what you imagine. It’s supposed to remind you and me of 1977, and the year that, supposedly, punk-rock blew up and broke apart the music industry and the British political system.
It’s all a bit of a fantasy, really. If anything, it was a year prior to 1977 that things were at their peak. But how much is a good memory even worth? Modern British punks, Carousel, ponder this very question.
I’ll gladly tattoo “77” on my arm or wear it on a shirt. But like the grandmother in Carousel’s song knows, things aren’t that much different. Same boss as the old boss, and just the same kind of trouble. As for Britain – the train still doesn’t arrive on time, you shouldn’t walk the streets of London after dark, and John Lydon’s still pissed off.
What are memories really worth when the important things don’t change, or alter themselves incredibly slowly? Carousel’s “1977” manages to sound both morose and incredibly catchy. It’s a post-punk jingle. But the question that the song dares to ask, taking inspiration from the challenges of one of the musicians’ elder relatives, is a powerful one. Did “1977” really happen the way we’d like to remember it? And, did it ever really end?
