Sometimes I just don’t even know what to think about the idea of rock music. At this point, the all-encompassing definition of rock has become a joke; I’ve had it with dubiously intentioned attempts to rescue this dying lumbering dinosaur that’s been limping around lethargically since whatever comet of corporate greed and middle-American complacency decided to ruin the free-spirited fun for the rest of us. I mean, we have some folks who can be allowed to participate in metaphorical near-necrophilia; if you’re in a band with noticeable talent and vigor, like, say, The Dirtbombs or Comets On Fire or Major Stars, who can make head-crackingly excellent rock ’n’ roll, this is by far a much needed respite. But I’m through with those rock elitists who are trying way too hard to define rock as the one domineering genre above all others or as a piece of narcissistic abstract comfort that makes whatever schmuck with a guitar or flashy stage moves feel he is a special and clever being amongst his petty escapades of sex, drugs, and his dying mistress. I don’t even need to start naming names, but if you turn on your TV or radio, it’s there: a fairly repulsive and vile rotting corpse of “authentic” rock idealism that rings nauseatingly narcissistic and cliquish.
Since we really can’t save it, we just need people to destroy rock ’n’ roll from the inside out, to the point where it will potentially become vibrant again to those willing to think outside earthly constraints. And as too many self-consciously hip guitar bands have shown us as of late, you can’t invigorate anything with doses of stagnation; try telling that to whomever thinks some power chords, coke, and backstage oral sex is a great statement of purpose or valid artistic sentiment in and of itself, and you may get hostile stares. I mean, Jagger and Page had a lot of lurid and despicably hedonistic fun in their day, but they were also mad geniuses. I don’t know what kind of debauchery the Magik Markers get up to – maybe none for all I know – but at least by listening to The Voldoror Dance, the latest release in a never-ending series of tour CD-Rs, weird vinyl, and unofficial CD randomness, they’re probably having a seance or destroying things living or inanimate, even if only in the fantasies that dart through their synapses while drudging up such glorious mess. In the process, they gouge rock 'n' roll inside out, and what seems like a damaging overhaul is in actuality a violent life force that rock as a whole so desperately needs.
I’ve written about the Markers before, and I really can’t offer much more in the way of new approaches to these geniuses other than that they are my only uninhibited dream of a band that’s materialized in my young life. My generation produced a lot of commodity that was supposed to make me feel like throwing chairs and throwing a fist in society’s jaw, but this music actually delivers on such promises of daydreamed and internalized rebellion. It all feels beautifully destructive and powerful, which I’m told by the elders of rock music is what it had set out to do all along. It’s vicious and cacophonic, and there are barely any chords or riffs or any of that, but it’s honestly far from a criticism. Any rock snob who wants to downplay what the Markers do is overlooking that rock ’n’ roll isn’t supposed to pat us on the head. The people who wanted safe rock got their Pat Boones and their Breads and their Air Supplys; this contentious mess is potentially of the most freeing scuzz produced since no-wave and Ron Asheton made their respective marks.
But I digress. This is about the Markers. The Voldoror Dance is their most “professional” recorded piece, in that it was set to tape in an actual studio, and you can hear their tantrums in full clear sonic glory in the now, rather than echoing in your head after attending one of their shows. As most everything Elisa, Pete, and Leah have put out, it’s paradoxically beautiful and repulsive and flooring all at once; “Binary For Carey Loren” is 26-and-a-half minutes of what it means to have enjoyed punk rock, or, as a young and disillusioned music fan, to have a record in your collection that at least appears to encompass the thrill it was to have heard Kick Out The Jams or No New York when they were first unveiled. Amidst all of this id relinquishing, we also get the psychedelic-dubbed wonderment of “Ab’R-AChad-Ab’ Ra” and an honest-to-god filth rock death chant in “Pinkie Brown Goes To The Shore,” as great a nugget of bile as any since Pussy Galore vomited all over their garage.
Each day going into 2007 I see a steady stream of chaos, whether it be more corporate idiocy that urges us to rank our friends, a clueless and shortsighted populace willing to let pixelated representations of cartoon characters constitute a terror scare, or just the general mass vile stew of political and religious tomfoolery and everyday selfishness that permeates our culture. The Voldoror Dance is as confusing and bewildering a representation of our tumultuous new century as we may get, and since everyone is frowning and panicking about how dire the state of being alive has become, at least now we have musicians who, intentionally or not, are soundtracking and, ironically, relieving the headache I get everyday from turning on my television.
1. The Scream Of The Horses Glowing White
2. Binary For Carey Loren
3. Pinkie Brown Goes To The Shore (The Hero Of The Sea Is A Hero Of Death)
4. Ab’R-ACHad-Ab’ Ra
