Flipping for Flipper's third album titled LOVE

 note: misanthropaganda is so much more fun when you view it on your desktop or laptop. Your tablet is fine I guess, as is your phone, but for full enjoyment and understanding of the artist's (ha ha) vision, take my suggestion. It gives the posts a look that's a bit more reminiscent of an old 90's fanzine layout, which is the whole point of this bullshit blog. I mean, for Christ's sake, I've been noting this for two years. What's a matter with you? What are you stupid?

It's not that I showed up late to the Flipper party, it's that I proactively avoided them out of sheer disinterest. There was a reason for that (stupid as it may be), which is that I have always fucking hated Nirvana (with the later exception of Dave Grohl). First of all, their sound -meh; but there were more personal reasons that frosted my ass over Nirvana beyond that. When Nirvana broke with their sophomore effort Nevermind, the belabored accessibility of their sound at that point built a bridge for all of the jocks and preppy fucks in my town to cross over and away from Achtung Baby-era U2 and into a convoy of 'teen spirit' bandwagons. For that reason, I have always associated Nirvana with early mainstream appropriation of counter-culture. My high school associates and myself took a very averse position to the "Grunge" explosion of the early 90s. Lots of the musically decent bands that laid the groundwork of the sound had been doing their thing for years before the term "Grunge" was coined as a genre. They just weren't fortunate to have cute lead singers. 

(And what the fuck was with that dumb term? "Grunge". What the fuck is that? There were about fifty different sounds coming out of this so-called "Grunge" scene, so the term must have been reference to a look or an aesthetic rather than a musical formula. Producer Jack Endino said it best when he said that "Grunge" was nothing more than "a continuation of 70s Hard Rock with Punk ethos added to the mix". 

What does that have to do with Flipper? Well, Nirvana, whose members formed the Triumvirate of the Grunge explosion were the biggest proponents of Flipper ever. Quite frankly, I had never even heard of Flipper before seeing Cobain wearing homemade Flipper t-shirts to photoshoots. As a result, I made Flipper guilty by association, stupidly. (It's the same reason that I ignored the Melvins till about 2006.)

So, how did my ignorant avoidance of Flipper thankfully end? Well, thanks to Hank Rollins. After hearing the audio version of  his book Get In The Van a couple of decades ago, I was particularly interested in what Henry had to say anecdotally about Flipper. It motivated me to acquire Generic, their debut. That album came into my life at the most opportune moment possible. I was having a torrid love affair with Barbiturates around the time and Flipper goes with downers like Biscotti goes with an Espresso. You go ahead and eat about 15 to 20mgs of Valium and then crank either "Life Is Cheap" or "I Saw You Shine" (take your pick) and tell me if you don't have a kooky trip -an angry, pill head trip where you'll bang your fists against the wall till they look like Sharon Tate's living room. ("I Saw You Shine" inspired an entire section of my novel Diazepam Dreams. Shameless plug!)

  I ran that disc until all that was left of it was the clear plastic ring in the center of the CD. So from there, I jumped on their second LP, Gone Fishin'. On Gone Fishin', Flipper picks up right where its predecessor left off with a slight elevation of chops. They sound a little tighter but much cleaner. The base of the sound is still there, using certain elements (tactics, really) to annoy and irritate the listener at times. Flipper's rudimentary yet absurdist lyrical style greatly influenced Nirvana's approach at turning a non-phrase (Melvins as well, I think). Other than the heightened musicianship, Gone Fishin' is a continuation of Generic, that's to say that you can't own one and not own the other. That's also to say that if you don't like Generic, don't bother with its follow-up. The last two tracks on Gone Fishin' are superb! "You Nought Me" is accompanied by a vertigo-inducing piano performance that could easily lead to the questioning of your own sanity and the closer "One By One" is Flipper in an unusually melancholic form. I'm a sucker for down tempo, so "One By One" in all of its moody, minimal simplicity may be my second favorite Flipper song next to "I Saw You Shine".

Finally, my music wish list got around to Flipper's third studio album titled Love. When it arrived at my current habitat, I opened the jewel case only to find the moronic face of Nirvana bassist Kris Novoselic standing amongst the three original members of the band. Novoselic was given the nod as the replacement for original bassist turned worm-food Will Shatter. "Motherfucker", I yelled to myself. "I want a refund!" I never wanted that dope's face poking around anywhere near my illustrious music collection. He just looks dense, like Private Snowball and creepish. Because of the earlier mentioned fandom for Flipper by Kurt Cobain and Novoselic with zeal, the former was nothing more than a likely fit for the substitute slot based on his devotion if anything else. "Well, I might as well listen to the fucker", I grumbled to myself, sliding in the disc and strapping in for the ride. This fucking thing blew my mind! Furthermore, Kris Novoselic is probably the undisputed MVP of this joint. I was left at the end of the 43 minute record with a whole lot of egg on my face, which is ironic retribution from Novoselic himself whose head is shaped like an egg. 

(Now be vewy vewy quiet... He's hunting wabbits...)

As stated at the beginning, I am not at all familiar with Niravana's work outside of their debut album Bleach, which I did own at one point but don't remember it at all (what does that tell you), and of course radio-play. With this I am making the point that I am not acquainted with Novoselic's chops. However, I have to give it to the guy, the big lummox lays it down. His attack is so driving, and the churning tone of his bass is front and center throughout the whole record. The earlier mentioned Jack Endino has had plenty of history twisting knobs on Novoselic (and on the console too). The two go back to Nirvana's debut, and I suppose if anybody knows how to get a performance out of this guy it would be Endino. Many of the tracks seem as if they were written upon Novoselic's riffs. 

Ok, ok, enough of him already. The other noteworthy performance on Love is that of singer Bruce Loose. Adapting a more gravelly, throatier approach, his vocals are a perfect fit for some of the sludgier, dare I say "Grungy" numbers like "Why Can't You See" and especially the closer "Old Graves" which again -is structured upon Kris Novoselic's bassline. Bruce Loose updated his style by just a notch, shedding a bit of those off-key bellows from early works (which were probably elemental to their formula of obnoxiousness) and replacing it with a nasty sounding sneer. Sneering seems to be the subtext of this whole album, which marauds the senses with its contemptuous tone. I would suggest this record as a jump-off to someone who has yet heard Flipper just as easily as I would recommend their debut. 

So I guess the moral of this story is that Kris Novoselic isn't such a bad chap after all. Ugh, I'd hate to think that there might be Nirvana songs lurking in their back catalog that I may find enjoyable. I'd gladly admit it if I was wrong about them, its just you'll never get me to agree to review the evidence.

Smooches...

Oh yeah, and by the way, some of you that read this probably thought "Hey man, why'd you go so hard on Novoselic?" (Ugh, typical millennial softness!) Listen, I'm sure that Kris Novoselic whose sitting at home on a sectional couch made of thousand dollar bills gives a lumberjack's pube about what some gavone sitting on a lap-top at 1AM on a Thursday morning thinks about him. He'll be alright!
 

News flash: We interrupt this blog post as news has just come off of the AP wire that Kris Novoselic killed himself. Investigators say he did it after reading some stupid blog online that hurt his feelings...

Oh Shit!