Maneuver Ted Leo Sideways

Ted Leo does a pretty faithful version of "Suspect Device", but here he is banging out Kelly Clarkson and Yeah Yeah Yeahs tunes instead.

Onward! Sideways!

Hotcha! Hank

Stiff Little Sideways Raygun Maneuver

This video pretty well illustrates one of the uglier aspects of PUNK, and likewise, one of the greater failings of this HOT POOP blog - this idea that one history is somehow more important than any other history. Punkers are always so fucking righteous about their music and their scene, which bands are better, which bands are purer (don't I always mention "true believers"?), and we all know at least four aging, self-proclaimed punkers who likes to talk about what bands mattered first and most in their own particular city/scene, to say nothing of Punk as a monolithic thing that apparently matters. And they're always so fucking humorless about it. Perhaps you know me.

This is almost the same as being able to namecheck the most obscure band possible. For example, I'll never forget the time my band, The Nadz, opened for Finger Phil at that bonfire party out at Rudy's farm, and my cousin Chico broke his ankle trying to jump the fire. You weren't there? Oh man, you had to be there!

My nostalgia is better than your nostalgia, and I've got just enough delusions and desperation to write about it here.

But I'm not unique. My kind is not unique. Greasers. Hippies. Punks. Slackers. Hipsters. Each generation in the rock era has their douchebags.

You're soaking in it.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 163

Montrose: Montrose: "Space Station #5" [mp3]

No, this isn't Stiff Little Fingers doing their punk classic "Suspect Device". This is the Sammy Hagar-penned tune they blatantly ripped off for "Suspect Device".

When I was first getting into hard rock as a kid, "Space Station #5" used to actually get played on the radio (in addition to Montrose's biggest hit, "Bad Motor Scooter"), and it was one of my favorite songs. A few years later, a friend named Grace turned me on to Stiff Little Fingers, and it isn't surprising that "Suspect Device" became one of my favorite tunes.

Now, here I am 30+ years later, and both tunes still rock my world. And while it's probably not fair to Sammy Hagar and Montrose, "Suspect Device" remains one of my favorite songs of all time, and certainly one of the greatest Punk songs ever.

But this week's S4TW is meant to honor Sammy Hagar, when he was still cool, writing cool tunes, and not making me hate Van Halen, and perhaps moreso, to honor Ronnie Montrose, one of the most overlooked and forgotten guitar gods of his (or any) generation.

I mean, consider this - in the years prior to this album, Ronnie Montrose was the guitar player for Van Morrison. Van Morrison! How's that for versatility? From "Tupelo Honey" to this...Amazing...

Hotcha! Hank

Suspect Sideways Maneuver Device

Man, Grace was this young Irish lass on my freshman dorm floor (Hazeltine House!) who was way too serious to party...Way too smart to drink and drug...Way too activated to fuck...And all of us 18 year old sacks of testosterone thought it was a shame, cuz she was hot and we were fucking unchained for the first time, you know?

Ach, it was a senseless bitch cuz of course there were probably about 20 of the 31 other young women on our floor who weren't as serious as her...

I was just serious enough, often enough, to be friends enough with her to know that Stiff Little Fingers was her favorite band, and she gave me her "Suspect Device" 7" on my birthday that year, and I've still got that 7", and it's still one of the coolest gifts I've ever received.

Grace was/is Irish-Catholic, and proud of it, and as you might expect, she was an Irish Nationalist in favor of a unified Ireland, independent of Great Britain...I was born and raised Catholic, and even though I was a Polack who had lapsed by 18, I still appreciated and agreed with one of her more passionate causes. A free Ireland.

So, I don't know who put this video together, this pairing of "Suspect Device" with riot footage straight outta Belfast circa then, but it almost perfectly embodies how I've remembered Grace through the years...

A serious beauty with her clear eyes focused on violence.

"I'm a suspect device the Army can't defuse...You're a suspect device they know they can't refuse...We're gonna blow up in their face..."

Hotcha! Hank