Manitoba's Wild Kingdom - New York New York

"If I wasn't blasting Sister Ray I would lose my mind."

I love songs that reference songs. I also love it when both songs rock.



This is New York New York by Manitoba's Wild Kingdom - as in Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators, plus friends (some of whom are in The Dictators.) If you visited NYC in the scary 70s and grimy and dangerous 80s this song will stick to you. Me, I grew up in one of them there safe suburban slums. Still, this song makes me sing out loud, so be wary of playing it around me. It's the song that pops into my head on long subway rides when people start dancing or singing or panhandling. Fun stuff. The song, anyway, not the subway nonsense.

The Dictators - Faster and Louder

For a blog named after, themed after, and inspired by a song by The Dictators, it's had a nearly criminal lack of The Dictators recently.

Let's fix that, right now, faster and louder.

It's got Bruce Springsteen doing a 1-2-1-2-3-4 count on it, too.

For fuck's sake, it's about time I posted that.

Shonen Knife - It's a New Find

Wear your socks inside out. Get a weird haircut. Have fun. It's a new thing!

There is nothing I don't like about Shonen Knife.

Lemmy & WOW - Jailbait

Lemmy. Wendy Orlean Williams. Jailbait.

Enough said.

The Blue Hearts

I mentioned these guys before, and linked to a cover of their stuff from the movie Linda Linda Linda.

I'm not sure I've talked about them before.

I wish I'd heard of them earlier, but I have to admit I don't think I did prior to 2005 or 2006. I stumbled across the movie Linda Linda Linda, discovered The Blue Hearts, and then had friends (and a great Japanese teacher, Kimura-sensei) lend me their stuff.

I wish I'd known about them much earlier. I'd have loved them when I was in high school and college, when I was discovering bands like Naive and digging deeper and deeper into punk's roots.

Once I discovered this band, I got turned on to The High-Lows, and later onto Cro-Magnons, both successor bands to The Blue Hearts. Neither band really grabbed me as much as the original did, but they're good, too.

Here is a quick selection of standout tracks of theirs:

Owaranai Uta


Linda Linda


Train Train


Here is a good, full, live set. That YouTube user has a number of full set videos.