A Year of Music

Whenever I see Jack Johnson’s name, Pussy Galore’s “Dick Johnson” starts to play in the back of my mind. “Dick Johnson” is sort of, well, the name is as ambitious as the song gets, but I still enjoy it about 50,000 times more than I’ve ever enjoyed anything by Jack Johnson. I honestly lack the capacity to understand how or why people would actively seek out his music.

In other news, Radiohead is coming to town.

“Understand Me” is perhaps the best lead song off any Jon Spencer-related project. It is, in fact, the first song on Pussy Galore’s deeply unhinged blues-punk meltdown Dial M for M*th*rfucker, and I have loved it ever since I heard it on KBOO sometime in early 1990, with its erratically bleeped intro and all. It is a fantastic – and hilarious – song.

However, I have never been able to understand a goddamned word of what Spencer was singing, as he sings like Mick Jagger at the tail end of a three-week cough syrup bender. Nothing about Pussy Galore was ever particularly intelligible except their decision to cover the whole of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street (they owe Keith and Mick a lot, in their way), but then again, that never got officially released. So never mind.

“Dick Johnson” is another great Pussy Galore song, but its title is not ironic. It’s only awesome.