UNSOBER REVIEW: JOY DIVISION - UNKNOWN PLEASURES

Kung Fu Breakfast, the phenomenal DIY art zine, is set to release their Joy Division-themed issue (titled “Your Confusion, My Illusion”) over the next week, and as a regular contributor who has never listened to a full Joy Division album I thought this would be a good opportunity to intoxicate myself and write notes on the experience as my submission. Here are the resulting unedited notes on each track of Unknown Pleasures:

It’s close to midnight and I’m on an unmade bed. Sobriety is not within spitting distance. I’ve asked a few people for Joy Division album recommendations, but I think it’s most fitting to follow the suggestion of Kung Fu Breakfast’s EIC Jay Kantor: Unknown Pleasures. Still, thanks to Val over at Duff’s Bar for suggesting Still.

Disorder – This bass guitar’s sound is the happiest I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Guitarist sometimes sounds like he started playing because his step-father gave him a guitar last Christmas and he’s forced to take lessons. Background effects that sound like someone got mega points in a pinball machine. Singer sounds like the mumbling guy from your job when he goes out for karaoke. I like the part where he said “feeling” a bunch of times.

Day of the Lords – Sounds like he talked about shit on a wall, I’m like 41% sure. Need to look up lyrics later. Sort of a Birthday Party vibe, if they wanted people to mope-dance to their music, instead of shower yourself in garbage and spazz out and break the neighbor’s window with a ball-peen hammer. I wonder how many people have named their penis “The Ball Peen Hammer.” I like this song, definitely like Nick Cave singing, if he wasn’t allergic to the correct pitch.

Candidate – For two seconds I thought “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith came on. Then the drum sounded like it was in a cavern full of bats. And then a sad vampire started singing from the darkest corner of the cavern. And then the guitarist tried imitating the sounds of a cat crying with the strings. And then Les Claypool played after swallowing a bunch of Tylenol PM with an absinthe chaser. I could see people thinking this song is sexy. Some people, and some fruit bats.

Insight – Atmospherics. I wanna know how many takes it took to make the space-orangutan vocal sound in the background. LASER FIGHT. Just imagined a 3 hour space western in the span of thirty seconds. The bad guy wins. I do remember when I was young, Mr. Curtis. I was smaller, laughed at Mary Poppins for reasons I couldn’t explain, and I had a Puerto Rican friend named Sebastian. We wrote a play together about a troll who owned a trolley line. TROLLey.

New Dawn Fades – No lie, the bassist is propping up this album. That bass sound is fat and sassy and probably gives great hugs and has a day’s worth of jokes. You wanna buy this bass sound a beer and ask it about its kids, except this time you’re actually interested, unlike when you ask your old friends. I’m digging this song. I will definitely make out with my girlfriend to this with some black coconut incense burning in the background.

She’s Lost Control – Whenever the vocals fade I think I hear this robotic murmur beneath the echoing claves. Not sure if I was imagining that. Perhaps the victor of the laser fight? Robotic outlaw with an eyepatch and smokes heinous cigars. Nice, this song has a little attitude. The guitars are rocking, the bass is rolling, the drums are stuck on repeat, like Punxsutawney in Groundhog’s Day. But overall, made me happy.

Shadowplay – It’s cymbal day, all day, here at the CymbalMan Bargain Store. I get the feeling again that this guitarist gets applause at his high school talent show with these quasi-solos, but it’s mostly polite and his parents still clap harder than his girlfriend, who wouldn’t know a smile if she tripped over it. I think I heard the sort of sound effect old radio teleplays used, where some bald spectacled man with a bow-tie would just wiggle some sheet metal as a thunder crash.

Wilderness – In the background there’s a song I could see a grunge band covering, in the foreground a butt wiggling extravaganza. Might have just heard “the blood of Christ on his skin,” which makes me wonder if the guy who stabbed Jesus during his crucifixion was paid well for that sort of work. There must have been a lot of people mad at him. Actions have consequences, I guess. You can learn that from The Bible, or Breaking Bad, if you’re not much of a reader, like me.

Interzone – I’m digging this dusty rock’n’roll vibe. Reminds me of a Nashville Pussy song actually, if they swapped their vocalist for a guy who was raised on David Bowie instead of Ted Nugent. I could also see Rob Zombie liking this song, and combing Sheri Moon’s hair to it while whispering the lyrics to “Dragula” in her ear like secret poetry.

I Remember Nothing – Seriously just dodged like a bullet was fired through my window at me. Terrifying sound effect. Good job, foley guy. “We were strangers,” he says. I’m gonna guess right now that it doesn’t end up with them moving on from strangers to rival book-store owners to reluctant lovers? There’s a chance this song is about a man with a romantic relationship with his family’s heirloom rocking chair, and when someone finds out the immense shame creates such intense inner-conflict that he tears the chair to shreds, then uses the chair parts to break every mirror so he doesn’t have to look at himself. Or maybe it’s not about that at all.

(Editor’s Note: Unsurprisingly, this piece was not accepted into the Joy Division theme issue of Kung Fu Breakfast. Instead, one of my poems will appear in its place.)

REVIEW: PUMPS BAR

Mister Growl doesn’t yelp, let’s get that straight. Yelping is a sound too sissified to come from my masculine vocal cords. I have been known to yawp, however. My personal “Yelp” ban left me with only one possible course of action after recently visiting Pumps in Brooklyn: Write about the city’s only rock’n’roll strip joint on my metal blog. It’s not like my friends and fellow headbangers would mind, I mean strip clubs have been an important element of rock excess for 30 years. Where would Mötley Crüe be without strip clubs? And where would we all be without Mötley Crüe, besides maybe just a smidge happier and a lot more sober? As a non-ironic fan of clubs, especially ones with character and rock attitude, I will even excuse Crüe’s entire discography if it means one more place like Pumps in the world.

Pumps is tucked away on a dreary stretch of road that Bushwick seemingly doesn’t want to claim, so people started calling it East Williamsburg. There’s broken glass on the sidewalks and foreboding factories leering down at pedestrians until the glow of a neighboring gas station lures patrons closer, like that famous dock light from The Great Gatsby that Baz Luhrmann will recreate using atrocious CGI. The locale is not hip, it’s not fabulous, but it’s the exact quiet walk you need before and after a trip to a strip club to think of The Greater Truths. The ten minute walk (if you have short legs) from the nearest subway is perfect for an internal monologue about how the stigma of these establishments is just a hypocritical view of “evil” capitalism. Truth be told: Strip clubs offer a service. If the service does not interest you, move on. No need to demonize the patrons, the owner, and especially the workers. Everyone’s gotta make a living. I’m lucky enough to make a few bucks writing about metal albums, and those are the cleanest dollars I make. My day job is no better than someone shedding a little clothing to a song off ...And Justice For All.

Which they do at Pumps. I walked in with Metallica’s “One” playing loudly and three topless dancers performing in front of a long mirror, creating the illusion that the venue is twice the size. After the initial M.C Escher mirror mind-trick I was able to take in the layout: A long bar with 2 female tenders sliding drinks to eager customers and one long aisle to walk behind the stool-perched patrons lining the counter with a narrow lap dance lounge separated from the main room by a curtain of beads. Two beautiful motorcycles hang from the ceiling with assorted rock/sports related posters and knick-knacks decorating the walls. The dancers take turns twisting around two poles, leaving one to freestyle against the mirror or on the floor of the platform. There’s a refreshingly blunt streaming neon sign over the bar reading “If you don’t have money take your broke ass home!”

Which takes me back to this being a service. Remember, most services cost money. I don’t know what your job is, dear reader, but I assume you would not do your job for free, unless you’re a lowly intern, which means that you have all my sympathy. Unless you wander into Pumps without the ability or desire to spend some money, then my sympathy dries up like a mummified vagina. There’s no cover, which is awesome and increasingly rare, unless you get some glossy postcard for a Times Square strip club and enter a place before 7PM, which I’m not against but will definitely limit your ability to accurately enjoy the full splendor of any establishment. Beers are $7, stronger drinks are $10 or so. The bartenders live off of tips, as do the dancers. After each song the dancers on stage will stroll around the bar, say hello, and ask for a sign of your appreciation, which is a dollar amount of your choosing, as long as it’s one or above. Some will gripe about this practice, as there’s usually more distance between seats and the stage, affording customers less anonymity and privacy. I personally love it, and it makes the experience more personal and closes that gap between performer and patron. This is a small place to begin with, so it’s not like you’re gonna find a dark corner and camouflage yourself to ogle without detection. Cough up some cash and treat everyone right, which includes polite tipping and staying respectful. Lap dances are available for the standard $20, but the dancers are not topless, which I admit is a bummer. Still, if you want some conversation and friction this is a promising opportunity. You’re also welcome to buy a dancer a drink if you’d prefer more conversation and less friction, and they will usually opt for a $20 glass of champagne. These prices are pretty standard for this industry, so if you’re rolling your eyes at them you have my permission to stay at home and peruse the internet for nudity, which should take an exhausting .6 second Google search.

The staff of dancers is eclectic but leans toward Suicide Girl territory, with body mods abound and Manic Panic hair moving brightly in the black light. Still, if you’re searching for a certain body type or ethnicity they are very likely represented on a weekend night. All of the dancers were very friendly, offering chit chat if it was sought, or vaster discussions about art if you pay for their time. I won’t mention any names (since aliases mutate regularly in this business anyway), but the staff in general were fun and laid-back, cracking jokes about their Catholic roots while Rage Against the Machine blasted in the background.

One extremely talented performer, a dark-haired beauty named Mia, invited me to a Pumps-hosted event later in the week featuring an art exhibit and a burlesque show. I used to frequent Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School over at the Slipper Room, my favorite burlesque joint in the city, so the union of art and burlesque is totally my jam. I will cover Aubrey Roemer’s dynamic work soon as a featured artist on this blog, so stay tuned for that, because it features the Pumps Pin-Ups.

Anyway, I’m one of those annoying guys who is fifteen minutes early for everything, including the art exhibit. The Pumps owner (or manager, unsure which) was kind enough to not only open the doors to me, but give me a drink on the house for being the early bird eating the fuck out of the worm. He then said, “If you were wearing a Pumps shirt I’d have given you two beers.” I was wearing the Down “smoking Jesus” shirt. Frowny face. Still, little gestures like that are what make a business part of the community, and it did not go ignored. The burlesque show was sassy fun, showing off the singing/dancing/teasing talents of the Pumps Pin-Ups with smiles abound. Burlesque is one of my favorite forms of entertainment and they nailed the mischievous, playful tone that makes it so appealing.

I definitely recommend Pumps to anyone seeking a gentleman’s club experience more in line with my own blue collar working attitude. Scores may get all the Yankee players, and they can keep ‘em. Pumps get the rockers and metalheads who stop by Duff’s and Saint Vitus, though the clientele is diverse as well. I see Pumps as a positive life experience, one that discards the bells and whistles of polished, upscale clubs and succeeds with quality talent, personality, and a playlist that rocks harder than any other club in the city. It may not be glamorous and it may not be the Vegas strip, but I know Crüe would approve, and they’re pretty much the Roger Ebert of strip club opinions and insight.

Get more information on Pumps over on their site, including the address and happy hour times (with $4 beers, which is totally solid):  http://pumpsbar.com/