From The Badger's Lair #10

Commentary

Big Black make a fantastic racket. Songs About Fucking is one of my all time favourite albums, an album I still listen to at least five times a year. Here’s the album in full with some background/stories about the tracks for your amusement whilst you listen. Turn it up loud and imagine you're in Huddersfield in the late 80’s dreaming of something else.

The Power of Independent Trucking. A statement of intent kicking off one of the finest albums ever made.

Oh, you think that was a nice piece there, eh? I'll tell you something, I got an exit book here, shows the best steak on any mile of interstate in the whole pig-friggin' country, shows every decent motel and a few indecent ones. Shows where to get a new axle at four in the morning, fucking bible. well, i got another little book i wrote up myself, sort of an exit and entrance book, if you get me. Shows me where every piece of ass I ever picked up is. I can get laid inside ten minutes just about anywhere in the fucking world, it's all in the book. This one chick though, i'll never forget it. Moved her ass like a blender, bitch simply could not get enough, buck and scream like a wild animal, every time i go through jersey i stop in for a taste. The one thing i can't stand is when they get emotional about it. Want you to call 'em and write 'em. When i'm gone, i'm gone. I'll take 'em with me for a while, we ride, then fuck, then ride. I've burned out three mattresses in the cab-over up there. that one, though, she was wild.

Entrance/Exit street map of Chicago showing hop houses, drug dens and other such places of ill repute circa 1895

Only single taken from the album. The Model. And in my opinion a far better version than the original. The perfect joint to drop into any 80’s themed shindig.

Boy, don’t we all look smashing in red…

Bad Penny. What’s Really impressive is that some of these guys last so long, you’d think more of them would get killed, since all they do is burn their bridges.

El Dopa. A live performance favourite as anybody lucky enough to see them live will attest too. I’ve kept to the longer album version here but live versions can be found on the wonderful Youtube.
“one two, fuck you!"

Daisy went to sleep at 15 and woke up many years later. She, being perfectly sensible, decided she ought to die, since she had literally slept away her entire productive life. The medical profession had, in her absence, decided that all life must be preserved, regardless of worth to its owner, and prevented her from performing the only noble act she was capable of.

Remember that soppy Robin Williams film ? well it was based on a book by the esteemed Doctor Oliver Sacks. Some background.

Precious Thing.

In general, someone is a thing of value if and only if he or she is willing to submit to whatever degradation and abuse is required to preserve that position. Anything less betrays a lack of commitment.
Marquis De Sade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadomasochism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_120_Days_of_Sodom

Colombian Neck Tie

The necktie, a particularly humiliating way to die. involves having your throat slit from ear to ear. so your tongue can flop out on your neck. It originated in Colombia during the period of political violence known as La Violencia, as a method of psychological warfare, meant to scare and intimidate and is often wrongly attributed to drug trafficking kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Obligatory cat piece coming up.

Kitty Empire.

Ever since that fellow there moved in there's been some mighty strange goings on over there, he's up until all hours, he's got that crazy music, noisy all the time. There's some sort of cat army there, too. they live under that porch, someone saw him out there jaybird naked one time hopping like an indian out in the weeds. The smell is just ferocious sometimes, like he does his own number twos out there in the yard. I swear.

Ergot.
I wondered how Albini got this noise.
Metal guitar strings played with a metal plectrum. Two notches cut into it’s the answer.

Psychedelic fungus infestation of european grain, not divine inspiration, as responsible for many of the "visions" so lovingly portrayed in the christian paintings of antiquity. how many people were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for satanism while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out on bad bread?

Kasimir S. Polaski Day.

The mafia still knows how to throw a good killing when it needs to. The more colourful ones get the most attention. a bomb, for instance, doesn't need to be in the victim's car. It can be in a stalled vehicle on the roadway, waiting to go bang until the victim happens to be driving by: other people may be driving by as well, life's rough.

Fish Fry.

It went like this, as near as anybody can tell. he went to her family's fish fry, took her to the drive-in, porked her, then beat her to death with his boot. It is speculated that he was upset about the ease with which he got into her pants, when she had resisted his brother's attempts earlier. He threw the body into frenchtown pond, if memory serves, and went home. when the police found him the following afternoon, he was nonchalantly scrubbing out the cab of his truck with the aid of a garden hose.

Pavement Saw.
A love song. Of sorts.

The things people do when they have nothing to do can be pretty silly. Those same people can become all-important in each others lives, the things they do increase in importance in proportion, soon a lot of people who do nothing individually scrutinize the miniscule doings of the others. this, in short, is "falling in love."

Tiny, King Of The Jews.

Sometimes, even killing yourself wouldn't be enough. like when you realize that your entire life has been lived under a presumption of free will, but all you've been able to make of it is a sad parody of everything you used to hate. Slowly, without trying, everyone becomes what he despises most.

BOMBASTIC INTRO.
Every good vegas act has an opening theme, some appropriately triumphant fanfare to welcome the delight of the audience. It helps convince them the show was worth their thirty bucks or soft.