Dear Friends,
I just need this week to end on a high note. Good news from the east or something nice happening for one of the kids and I’m golden. What do you say, Universe?
*****
Evil Nancy is a spoiled little shit. I don’t know how good of a job I do with faking the funk with her and not showing that I think she’s a little fuck nut. She’s mean and petty and totally dismissive of criticism or redirection.
I need the Cocaine Baby, actually, because he would scare the shit out of her. Cocaine Baby is in a different league, which is good, but the rest of my class are really (no, REALLY) good kids. Genuinely nice kids, too. One bad Nancy can spoil the bunch.
Evil Nancy calls one little boy a “Monkey.”
This was after she complained about people making racist comments about her. The worst part is that she knows she is pulling a “do as I say, not as I do.” She’s wicked smart.
I’ll get her, though. She’s going to be a better human.
*****
Around my 15th birthday, my dad took me to Vans California Daze in Metrocenter and got me some new t-shirts. I was embracing the punk look, and I chose three shirts. One of those was a bright yellow Exploited shirt.
I started wearing it to school, which was Deer Valley High, and thought I was pretty cool. There was only one problem. I didn’t an Exploited record. I didn’t really know any of their songs. I was clearly a poser.
One day, in fact, one of the punk guys who had been in the scene for a couple of years saw me wearing the shirt and said, “Are you exploited, dude?” in a way that was not friendly or welcoming to the punk rock community. I realized I better get with the program.
The first record of theirs I bought was Horror Epics which was brand new at the time. I loved the cover art, for one thing, but when I put the needle on the record for the first time back in April or May of 1985, I was hooked. I could officially say that one of my favorite bands was The Exploited.
Horror Epics is the main reason I love a great tribal drum beat. Wullie Buchan’s beats on the record are spectacular in their liberal use of the floor toms. There are some songs where it sounds like he never hits the snare, but that can’t be right. I don’t care either way. What I care about it how great this record sounds to my ears.
The title track, “Horror Epics” is sofa king good. Admittedly, I’m getting close to 40 years with this record, and I’ve definitely been singing the wrong lyrics for all of that time, but again, I don’t care. Wattie Buchan’s think, Scottish accent is hard for me to decipher.
I was so pissed that I had missed the opportunity to see them just before I declared my public desire to love them that I would ruminate on it every time I listened to this record. Luckily, The Exploited came back to Phoenix in 1987 and I went there with every intention of having the greatest time ever.
I did, too. The first (and maybe only) I did a flip while diving off the stage. I got to talk with Wattie a little bit and thought it was so cool. I was fulfilled. I’ve gotten to see them a few more times since, once from the side of the stage, and they still deliver the goods.
“Don’t Forget the Chaos” is the second track and, again, another barn burner. It’s also another one where I don’t know the words as well as I once thought I did. Listening to it now makes me realize that I was singing the wrong thing. I wonder if I did that in front of people who actually took the time to read the lyrics.
I worry about stupid shit when it comes to the music I love.
“I Hate You” was an early fave. I think this record was one of the first records I owned that was just straight up UK punk that wasn’t the Sex Pistols. There was something about it that made me feel like I had some connection to the land of my grandparents’ birth.
The political vent they had just grabbed me, even if I would later learn there were bands that did it more eloquently. It doesn’t matter. The Exploited were my first love when it came to that part of the genre. I can love those other bands, too.
“Maggie” is a great song, and it ends that first side. The B side is also full of gold. “Dangerous Visions” gets things going right away. I was always kind of partial to “Treat You Like Shit,” as well. This is a band that knew how to drive the point home that they were there to fuck things up.
I just hope Wattie’s heart will last long enough to see them again. Irish Rob, too. Good fucking dude…or should I say, “Bloke.”
*****
See you tomorrow.
AI is not punk.
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