Released
1988
Label
Metropolis Records
Reviewed by
Donald Netolitzky
Visit
Last Edit/Update
01 February, 1999
Snog
Buy me, I'll change your life!
Track Listing
1. Light, yet refreshing
2. Hooray!!
3. Make the little flowers grow
4. The Ballad
5. The Prole Song
6. Big Brother
7. This is Capitalism
8. The Human Germ
9. Bastard Closet
10. The Future
11. The People of Straight Land
12. The End (suite)
The vodka bottle is almost empty, my thoughts spin. It's been 4 hours, and yet everything I compose ... fails. Thoughts jam. And yet the lime green array of insincere toothy grins sits there. Mocking me. How do I describe this... this absurdity? This fiendish engine?
One last try. When confronted by the unorthodox, the strange, the out and out peculiar there is but just one solution. A bizarre album deserves a bizarre review. And thus... into the breach, one more, dear friends! OK. Visualize.
"The Tree Muggers" is a collaborative direction effort between Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Quentin Tarantino. (Coppola was in the original scheme but withdrew after Peckinpah promised to shoot him.) So far, Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Antonio Banderas, and Fairuza Balk (the obligatory goth-chick) have been cast as a ragtag bunch of hard-core econicks, who endure their corporate jobs, stripping off their day skins to monkeywrench construction sites, spike old-growth forests, and drift in the extremes of counterculture and kinky sex. Amazing that they managed to pitch this thing successfully given rough state of the script.
Though it doesn't hurt that McDonalds is bankrolling in return for some intense product placement - oh yeah, they're going to regret that!
Our directors are conferring... lets eavesdrop.
[Leone] Look, I don't care, Quentin... just none of your flash forward/flash back crap. This is an opus - it's gotta flow...
[Tarantino] Hey! Hey - this is THE way to convey the CONTEXTS of our characters and their roles! WHY they do what they DO! YOU should know that - I've seen your work and ...
[Peckinpah] - [gazing off fixedly somewhere towards infinity while cradling his Blackhawk] ... yeah... yeah and then if we put some thin slices of ham on top of the bloodbags, when the squibs go off, there'll be chunks spraying just like that deer last ...
[Leone] Sam IS on his meds, isn't he?
[Tarantino] Yes - course - he's fine. <sotto voce> (and the clip is empty - I switched it when he was going for more whiskey) OK - but no REALLY the flashbacks are good! C'mon! [points to storyboard] Look, Keitel pauses in the business drone infested street, camera zooms to clasp on his face, and then swings away to reveal an abattoir interior, racks of meat, distant screams of tortured animals, panning over Harvey's blood spattered hands, then circles back to his face, in close-up. And pulls back, to return us to the street scene. He buries his head in his hands. Admit it! It's bloody POETRY!
[Leone] Oh it's GOOD, Quentin, it's good... not denying that!
[Tarantino - feral tone] It's not good, it's BRILLIANT! That pussy Spielberg will piss himself... no Tom Hanks to save him this time either.
[general laughter - Peckinpah] ... yeah... pussy Spielberg...
[Leone] But Quentin, I'm not arguing the general concept - the climax is perfect. The mayhem as the Muggers storm the McDonalds corporate HQ, using their oversized industrial nailguns to pin the commerce drones to the walls, furniture - that's ideal!
[Peckinpah] SLOWMO!
[Tarantino] And unifying - trees and corporate logs, death and life!
[Leone] True! But this is an opus, not just a series of sketches, we are painting in grand style here. Therefore we need to pause on occasion... stretch out the moments, the thoughts...
[Peckinpah - interrupting] And I film the climax - everybody in slow-motion, luscious slow-motion, cut cut cut then the final spasm as the McDonalds Tower erupts in flame - switch angles in 2 second flashes! That's MINE!
[Tarantino - soothingly] Of course Sam... you direct the climax - you're the best! Not arguing... by the way. Where did you get the idea of using the nailguns instead of ... well, normal guns?
[Peckinpah] I was thinking about my wives.
[long meaningful look between Leone and Tarantino]. Peckinpah mumbles about squibs inside the spiked trees, with extra plywood for more splinters.]
[Tarantino] Mmm. Well, aside from the matter there's another key, KEY point. The music.
[Leone] You're right - gotta be grand, dramatic, macho...
[Tarantino] ... and biting and sardonic, something that makes you want to MOVE while you listen ...
[Peckinpah] ... and GRIN! Grin like a damned SKULL!
[Tarantino] Y'know... I know just the guy, name's Thrussell... he's in Australia and...
OK, so this album wasn't born that way - but it might as well have been! Genre affiliation? Well, perhaps a spaghetti-western / anti-capitalist / industrial / lounge / sing-along album.
Yes it is strange... and fun. Oh so much fun!
Musically, the tracks derive from an insane range of styles, all intriguingly distorted from the traditional form, gaining an edge of sharp glistening teeth. Lyrically, the work is unified, witty condemnations of modern society, biting and slyly satirical critiques of corporate structures, exaltations in the end-times. And worse - it's catchy. Just try to avoid singing along with these gems:
Hooray!!: electronic tones and percussion build in tension, driving along sardonic male vocals encouraging, demanding annihilation; "Hurry-on, the bomb! Hurry-on, the plague! Hurry-on, disaster. Hurry-on, the rage!" Dissolving into a lonely, wistful harmonica, a eulogy but one without regret.
Make the little flowers grow: ringing bells and cheery tones enthuse the announcement, you're gonna die! And somehow, the vocals invoke the dark smirk of a gloating lounge singer. "Wise men and fools, you'll get the fire. You'll never get out of this world alive!" Quirky intrusions of melodic noise space verses, mocking the listener. Join in, you can't deny the truth...
The Ballad: a swaggering latino guitar leads a duet of clear sweet female and deep growled male vocals on a discourse of the clandestine corporate oppression and observation of our lives. "Somehow, someone, somewhere, owns all of me, and owns all of you."
The Human Germ: a return to the retro-lounge, guitar, strings, bells and peculiar samples weave a gentle backdrop on gentle vocals. "but wherever the direction you may turn, you'll see my friend the Earth's being poisoned by the human germ." Only fragments of noise trail away... melody exhausted.
The Future: the most conventional industrial track of the album. Synthesized blips build, gradually adding layers of artificial tones, building methodically, intensity and aggression. Til the emergence of vocals leads the listener to imagine relief, only to be informed there is no promise, not here at least. "... you're screaming for your life but your mouth is gone..." Welcome to the future. Or is it the present?
Convinced this is a little strange? It is... but well crafted, too. Tracks drag one into the other in a smooth manner, pace rises and falls along with the emotion of the work. Dissecting any given track reveals a fascinating mix of quirks, delightful samples such as a camera click/film advance whir within The Human Germ, an elegant smooth transition from minor to major in This is Capitalism. Only a few of many - the album, at a glance, may appear a casual project, but close examination reveals the apparently simple surface structure conceals a remarkably complex internal mechanism.
And the combination, the playful melodies, the witty yet sardonic lyrics, is a marvelous dichotomy. Personally, I've not encountered truly subversive (yet obvious) lyrics since the Dead Kennedys - and to bind these to what such cheery, infectious music is a delicious choice. The conventional hippie radical is quite trivialized by Snog's simple, blatant and exultant truths. Here's music which, unlike Marilyn Manson, will truly terrify mom - she'll be humming along for a couple hours before she catches the lyrics... and then it's off to counseling!
But be warned - this album is not for everyone. If you are a rigid consumer of industrial music who views anything 'softer' than 16-volt as 'selling out', you will loath this CD. And for almost anyone, the first exposure to Buy Me... will, at best, be puzzling. What IS this? And perhaps the first encounter will evoke nothing but dismay but... give it a few tries. You may suddenly find your voice joining in the chorus... And those daring amongst you who truly enjoy the unexpected, the perplexing? Go, the album title is not false advertising!
Periodically, one encounters a creative effort, which ... is puzzling. And as you circle the subject, two possibilities exist. Either this ... thing is complete crap, or a work of pure inspiration. But which? My suggestion - the latter.
And so, I embrace Snog, and slap this CD, once again, into my car stereo, and drive about, wearing a manic grin. And as the innocents of the world pull up beside me, and smile back at "that rather odd man who looks so cheerful and friendly!" I exult in dark thoughts and delight in knowing their sheep-like fate. And smile... and smile... as we all plunge into the fire.
