Torch and Toast Vol. 1

I'd like to introduce a new series called "Toast and Torch."  A large part of my life at this point has been spent loafing about drinking beers with other idiot philosophers I like to call my friends griping at the lack of recognition of someone or other, while other "artists" bathe in undeserved worship fueled by drooling idolatry.  Now is the chance to take my battle to the interwebs where I can laud my under dog homies, and crush those fettered products of the crunching hype machine, see them driven before me and hear the lamentations of their women (Conan...seriously underrated movie btw).

Today's topic: NYC Proto-Punk Scene - The Testors vs. Patti Smith

TOAST - The Testors fucking rule!!!!  They were rocking the speed punk thing years before anybody, like...1976 (Yeah I'm looking at you Misfits).  And yes, you could say the Damned, Dead Boys or the Ramones might have been their closest counterparts, but I feel like nobody thrashed quite as hard as the Testors.  Plus...they got banned from Canada, that's pretty punk dude.  The Pistols never were barred from playing an entire continent...It's no wonder one of my favorite lables ever, Swami, reissued their largely forgotten catalog (btw listen to any John Reis project, and you'll hear the Testors), and it's probably the reason anybody in my generation knows them.  All "they did this first" statements aside though, they wrote some pretty great punk/garage songs and paved the way for hooky melodic punks like Husker Du and the Misfits.

TORCH - Patti Smith - good, not great...entirely overrated.  She sings like Tom Verlaine undergoing a rectal exam.  Fine...punk singers aren't supposed to be "good" per se.  But at least, unique?  And without recalling sounds akin to severe pressure on one's anus.  Punk rock's poet laureate?  I think not.  Everybody raves about her lyrics, I don't see it.  Leonard Cohen, Dylan, those dudes were poet laureates...also small guy Nick Cave circa 1979 with the Birthday Party, punk rock poetry at it's finest.  Horses is a good record, meaning it has 3 or so good songs on it...which does not equate to "one of the greatest albums of all time" status as one would be led to believe.  I would go so far as to say Karen O does Patti Smith better than Patti Smith does. I'm not saying the world would be a better place without her, I'm saying enough with the vacant worship already kids...