10 Punk & Power Pop Albums Bobcat Goldthwait Thinks Every Music Fan Should Own
The post 10 Punk & Power Pop Albums Bobcat Goldthwait Thinks Every Music Fan Should Own appeared first on Consequence.
Crate Digging is a recurring feature in which we take a deep dive into a genre and turn up several albums all music fans should know about. In this edition, comedian, actor, director, and one-time punk rocker Bobcat Goldthwait shares some very personal picks.
This was the plan: With Bobcat Goldthwait about to release his new comedy album Solider for Christ, we asked the celebrated iconoclast/comedian to pick his 10 favorite comedy albums for a new installment of Crate Digging. Here was the problem, as Goldthwait explains to Consequence: “When I started thinking about comedy albums, there were comedy albums that definitely influenced me, but unfortunately I really don’t like the people anymore.”
Goldthwait wasn’t shy about saying who, exactly, he was talking about: “Those early Bill Cosby albums, I loved, but I really, really don’t like Bill Cosby. And then another album was Woody Allen — again, I don’t like these people.”
So we pivoted, and it turns out Goldthwait’s relationship with music is far deeper than you might realize. Not only does the comedian have plenty of stories about opening for Nirvana on tour and hanging out with David Bowie, but he was also in a punk band at one point himself, and has a deep love for the music of the mid-’70s and ’80s, a category he says “they would call punk rock or new wave. If there is anything that most of these albums have, is that they’re very snide.”
Looking back on an adolescence spent discovering these brash new sounds, Goldthwait says that he and his lifelong friend Tom Kenny (yes, the voice of Spongebob Squarepants, and a frequent collaborator to this day) “are always wondering — why were we so angry? We were these white middle class kids that had a pretty good ride. And we were nice to most people and adults. But we just had this rage that was percolating for no good reason. Anarchy in the mall.”
Says Goldthwait, about the music of this time: “Elvis Costello, The Ramones, these albums were a big deal, because they weren’t getting played on the radio. People now have like a soft spot for bands like Journey, but fuck off, man. That was really horrible music. It was just ponderous guitar noodling, and that was what was on the FM radio then. So it’s funny how now they get played on the radio — I mean, radio doesn’t exist as much, but there’s an awareness to them now that there wasn’t then. You had to find it.”
Goldthwait’s Crate Digging list thus reflects both Goldthwait’s teenage years discovering these artists, as well as a lifetime working in entertainment, where the lines between genres and mediums so often dissolve. It’s also confirmation of an adage you might have heard before: All comedians want to be rock stars, and all rock stars want to be comedians. Goldthwait says that it’s “a hundred percent” true, laughing: “I remember once, like years ago, hearing about Springsteen going to an open mic and trying to do standup at the Stone Pony or something like that. And I think he ate it.”
Here are the albums that Goldthwait picked, a selection he edited a fair amount prior to our conversation because “I had to think hard about what albums I bought and listened to over and over, that then changed how I saw the world.” Accompanying his thoughts on these records are some incredible stories.
The Ramones – Rocket to Russia
It’s the first Ramones album I bought. Those songs are just funny. [Quoting “We’re a Happy Family”] “Sitting here in Queens/Eating re-fried beans/We’re in all the magazines/Gulpin’ down thorazines.” What’s interesting too, is there’s “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” — that was the first time I was aware of “punk rock” in a lyric.
Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True
These were really short songs, and the lyrics didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense even to us, but they were a little biting. Sarcastic songs. “Mystery Dance,” we had that one figured out — we figured out that was about masturbation, but the rest of them, we weren’t too sure. That’s a really rage-filled album. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with his relationship with Burt Bacharach, but this is a really snarky guy. I love that album.
Nick Lowe – Jesus of Cool
I think in these states it came out as Pure Pop for Now People — we couldn’t handle it. But these are just short songs. Very poppy. I guess they’d be considered power pop now. But there’s “Marie Provost,” which is a song based on an urban myth that this silent film actress who did die penniless was eaten by her dachshunds because they were hungry. The other theory is that maybe they were trying to wake her up, I don’t know. But there was bite marks from her dachshunds on her body. It’s almost The Cure’s formula, to have like a poppy song and then really, really dark lyrics. But these were dark lyrics that were funny.
I loved Nick Lowe. It wasn’t the anger or fury, but he was clever and funny. A song about going to the Bay City Rollers show — a lot of punk bands that came later, if they were to write a song about the Bay City Rollers, it would’ve been a song about how horrible they were. But here was a guy singing a song about how excited he was to go to the Bay City Rollers show, and we all got the joke, and that is way more crippling than saying the Bay City Rollers suck.
DEVO – Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
That was just really insane. It was deconstructing — I guess that was the idea, devolution. “Satisfaction” is on that, and there’s nothing about it, outside of the lyrics, that sounds like “Satisfaction” by The Stones. It was so weird to hear this stuff, and then at the same time, to be tapping your toe.
What’s funny is this — this is a weird thing about me. They have a song, “Mongoloid,” on that record. And even as a kid, I was uncomfortable with that, which is funny because people would accuse my character that I did as making fun of people with special needs. And here I am being so PC in the ’70s going, “I don’t think you should write a song about calling someone a mongoloid, because that’s not the proper term.” But that was how weird I was.
The B-52’s – The B-52’s
There was no cynicism in this record. I can remember being at a house party and putting “Dance This Mess Around” on and all of us just pogo-ing in our primary color clothes, almost as if the album came alive. I mean, we were really those characters.
It was just fun music, which is interesting, because I’ve noticed that the truly oppressed tend to make happy and fun music. Nobody was attacking a lot of these cis white guys for who they were, and they were making angry music. Now here we got a band where half the band’s gay, and they’re saying, “Eh, you know, our rights are fucked and people pick on us and we have a rougher go, but we’re just gonna write insanely fun dance music with insane lyrics.” It seems like the truly oppressed are just looking to dance.
Joe Jackson – Look Sharp!
Again, here’s the teenage white guy angst. “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” is the equivalent of Janis Ian for dudes my age. Look Sharp was Carole King’s Tapestry. [Laughs] It’s all about about not getting the gal and being weird. Most of the songs on that album are somebody who’s watching other people in relationships and being bitter about it. “Happy Loving Couples,” there’s another one. “Fools in Love.” This is a guy that is not in a relationship, and he’s mad about it. And so when you’re a 15-year-old boy, this really meant a lot.
And I actually worked in a supermarket. So the song “Instant Mash” really rang true, because “Instant Mash” is a song about how the music will drive you crazy in while you’re working in a supermarket.
The Go Go’s – Beauty and the Beat
I kind of changed my mind — I first put Blondie down and I remember liking Blondie, but when I started looking at the tracks on that first Blondie album, I wasn’t as familiar with it as I though. Believe it or not, I was more familiar with The Go Go’s. “We Got the Beat” was a hit song, but what I was unaware of is their whole roots were punk. Belinda Carlisle would perform in a black plastic garbage bag, and they were playing with like The Germs and people like that.
The Go Go’s were marketed as, you know… On the album cover, they had the cold cream on their face, and they’re in towels and stuff, and I guess that’s a little F you. The reality was, if they had marketed ’em the way that they really were, I probably would’ve gravitated to ’em faster. But I’m sure that would’ve scared people away. There were other all-female bands that played their instruments, but they’re the first one to break so big.
The Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
That record, even though nothing on it really should click with a kid from the ‘burbs, was was one of those records I played. It knew all, every single track.
I remember I was in a punk band, and it was called The Dead Ducks. We had this one guy, Kenny, who would dress like Steven Tyler, and he played guitar, and he loved guitar solos and all that crap. And either me or Danny, the other guy in the Dead Ducks, we gave him Never Mind the Bollocks, and he just went in his room for two days and he never stopped listening for a couple days straight. And he came out and he was changed. He went from this guy who looked like he was in Aerosmith to… He still looked like he was in Aerosmith, but now he was Johnny Thunders. So that was the power of that record. [Laughs]
It was interesting to learn about the recording of it and who did what and stuff. I’m always fascinated by bands where they don’t like each other, and then they make this great stuff together, and after you’re huge, it’s like, all you have to do stand in this spot — you don’t even have to look at ’em — and play the songs you wrote together, and you get a hundred thousand dollars a night. And it’s like, “I can’t do it. I just hate ’em so much.” I find that really fascinating.
Cheap Trick – Cheap Trick at Budokan
It was very commercial and popular and it got played, but again, it was considered threatening and weird, and those songs were still considered edgy, which is really funny. Rick dressed like a nerd, and Bun E. Carlos was a nerd. But those were just great pop songs. Growing up when I did, there was no way you didn’t know, “I Want You to Want Me,” and the cover of “Ain’t That a Shame.” Oh man, all those songs.
I ended up opening for [Cheap Trick] later on in life and they were playing “Surrender” as the encore, and they go, “Do you wanna come out?” And I go, “Yeah.” And they gave me one of Rick’s guitars with all the crazy necks on it, and I’m on stage with Cheap Trick, with this guitar. And I go, “What key are you in?” And Rick Nielsen goes, “You’re not plugged in, man.” And I was like, ok. So then I started doing these Pete Townshend windmills, and I was doing the Chuck Berry duck walk across the stage. I couldn’t move the next day.
It was funny because Robin [Williams] came up to me after that and Robin goes, you knew all the words. And I’m like, yeah, man, of course I know all the words. I was born in 1962.
The Cars – The Cars
This was mind blowing: I remember being in my friend’s car. I think I’m drunk, I don’t know, I might have been on pot, I don’t know. And I’ve got my head in between the speakers in the backseat of his car, and I’m sitting there and we put on The Cars. It was like, whoa — it’s phasing from speaker to speaker and there’s no guitar solos. It’s like [vocalizes a power chord], and then this guy’s singing in this weird voice.
You know, none of these guys were babes. Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, or Ric Ocasek, these guys did not get the ladies, but they did, you know? In certain forms of rock, they could just hide it with hair, but these guys just ran into it. They wore their dorky glasses, they wore their hair like it was the fifties. They just really ran into being nerds. And so, of course, we related to ’em and loved them.
Bobcat Goldthwait’s Soldier for Christ is available now on vinyl, digital, CD and as a limited-edition ’80s Party Pack which includes a CD + CD player and more.
10 Punk & Power Pop Albums Bobcat Goldthwait Thinks Every Music Fan Should Own
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