I Can't Live Without My Radio

HOLY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK



We're back, motherfuckers. IllCon Radio, Episode 37. Our guest is Oxbow frontman and author Eugene Robinson, the twisted mind behind such staggering works of literary genius as Fight and A Long Slow Screw. Eugene will discuss the finer points of post-modern French Expressionist poetry with us, and then punch us in the face.

There's also this guy Aesop who keeps showing up to the studio and hanging out during taping, we've tried repeatedly to shoo him away but the dude keeps coming back like a fucking cockroach. Unless our attempts are successful this evening, he will appear on the show as well. Apologies in advance.

10 PM-MIDNIGHT. HERE. (415) 829-2980.

There is a bunch of other shit coming up too. Like THIS, for instance (if you live in or around Half Moon Bay, tomorrow is going to be some crazy stuff--DO NOT MISS IT). In related news, if you live anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, I am coming to visit you soon. I may or may not need your floor/alcohol/women/food/WiFi connection/emotional support. Stay tuned, ass clowns.

And remember:

NIKKI DAVIS PAYPAL DONATION INFO

Hey gang, just a quick note to let you know that a PayPal donation account has been set up to help out our friend Nikki Davis in her recovery process. Last I heard, Nikki is stabilizing, and communicating with her family via writing. This is excellent news, but the hospital bills are mounting, and, as Nikki is a full-time student (Jeff was their sole source of income), any help is welcome and appreciated. If you've got nothing to give, please just continue sending good vibes and psychic support.
Donation email is help_jeff_n_nikki_d@yahoo.​com.
If you do choose to send something, please make sure you mark it as a "gift" or PayPal takes a cut. Thanks.

R.I.P. JEFF DAVIS

I'm writing to you guys with heavy heart today, as I have just learned of the passing of my close friend and co-worker Jeff Davis, known also as Jef Leppard to his bros and colleagues. Jeff and his wife Nikki were involved in a motorcycle accident at Ocean Beach in San Francisco last night, and at the time of this writing, Nikki is struggling for survival as well. I can honestly say that it is impossible for me to imagine two people less deserving of a fate like this one--in the recent years that I've come to know these two beautiful people, I never heard either of them express any sort of anger or negativity, and experienced only love and support whenever I was in their presence. Jeff was an audio engineer, and through the countless hours that me and my bands sat in his back room, incessantly looping through eons of top-volume double bass rolls, Nikki never showed any hint of annoyance at our general rowdiness and thuggery--on the contrary, she has always been the picture of generosity and kindness, offering us home-cooked meals, beverages, and support. Their marriage was by all accounts a happy and fulfilling one, and these events have put an end to something that has always inspired and impressed me.
Jeff was a guy that, through everything he did--be it music (outside of engineering he was also a ripping guitarist, playing with bands such as STFU and Voetsek), work (I hired him at my "real job", and he was always staunchly professional and dependable), or friendship (those who counted him as a good friend are legion)--left an impression of realness, goodness, and solidity in his wake, and as a man who has experienced loss many times in the past, I can truly say that Jeff's passing cuts deeper than almost any other. I have friends who I know "better" than I knew Jeff, or longer, but the ease I had in conversing with him, in discussing deep, meaningful (to me, at least) topics, surpassed most of those friendships by far. In a recent recording session, me and Jeff were left alone in his studio to track guitar for an hour or two, but rather than getting any "real" work done, we ended up quickly shirking duty and falling into a lengthy discussion about relationships, motivation, positivity, and life in general. At the time I was going through a difficult break-up, and that extended trip into Jeff's mind will always stay with me as an ultimate moment of revelation and meaning. It put me on a permanent path to becoming a better person and sorting out my own life, yet to Jeff I'm sure it was just another passing conversation with a friend. He radiated intelligence and caring in a way that was wholly unquestioned and instinctual--he was just a great fucking guy, and he never asked for credit or acknowledgment. People like Jeff simply don't exist in this world, and it is an extremely painful undertaking to let him go.
I know that in the months leading up to his death, Jeff had become a reader of Illogical Contraption, and was always a dweller in the same sphere of weirdness that we all inhabit here. As such, all corny platitudes aside, I feel like the IllCon family has lost a Brother, and even those who never had the honor of meeting him in person just experienced a devastating blow as well. It's hard not to wax poetic and regurgitate cliches in difficult times like these, but Jeff was one of the good ones, and he will be deeply and sorely missed. There are very, very few people I respect as much as I did Jeff, and the unfairness of his departure leaves me full of confusion, grief, and rage.
If you believe in some sort of "higher power", please petition them to grant Nikki a full recovery, and if you don't, please just take some time to send positive thoughts. Through all the pain and sadness, it is difficult to remember that there is goodness in the world. But today, I am reminded of just how lucky I am to be surrounded by such amazing people, and even when they're gone, their memories will always encourage and inspire me. Do yourself a favor today, and give a big, stupid hug to the people that you care about. Tell them how important they are to you. We're nothing without each other, and every second we get is a fucking gift. Remember that.

Rest in peace, Jeff.

BLACK SABBATH - FORBIDDEN (1995)

You would think that after such a long absence, I might return bearing worthwhile gifts for my beloved readership, but alas, no such luck on this sunny Thursday afternoon--today I present you with naught but pure, undiluted garbage, in the form of the mighty Black Sabbath's final studio embarassment, Forbidden.
What constituted "Black Sabbath" in 1995 was a sad diminishment from even their lineup in 1992, much less the Dio years, much much less their heyday in the early-to-mid-seventies. What we have here is a broken, limping, generic-riff machine fronted by terminal no-name Tony "The Cat" Martin (above right), who even with the omnipresent Tony Iommi (no Geezer at this point--he was busy with GZR. LOL!) in tow couldn't muster an ounce of thunder on this resounding fart of an attempt at "hard rock". The handsome and talented Cozy Powell (who was later replaced by Blue Oyster Cult's Bobby Rondinelli, a dude that subsequently attempted to steal my girlfriend in the mid-00's--true story) rounded out the squadron on skins, but his servicable thumping is piss in an ocean to the utter, anachronistic misstep that is this album.

Did I mention that Ernie C from Body Count (left) was hired to produce this album? Or that esteemed thespian Ice T himself makes an appearance on the opening track? It's all true, which, in a way, is the only selling point to this album. It's pure novelty/curiosity, this ill-fated pairing of British rock legends and talentless urban street toughs, and really the only reason I brought it up today is that I find Tony Iommi's idea of what was "hip" and "edgy" in 1995 just about the most hilarious thing imaginable. His "go-to" was Body Count. Think about that shit.
Anyways, sorry to drop this turd in your proverbial punch bowl today, but hey, you can't win 'em all. Keep your head up, and just remember: RUSTY ANGELS, THEY CAN'T FLY.
Apologies.

Don't download HERE
Don't purchase HERE



Enjoy a low-budget documentary about the Tony Martin Era of Sabbath:

Brave New World and a Half

Although its roots remained firmly planted in the buddy-comedy genre of previous decades, the offshoot emergence of the buddy-cop subgenre in the mid 1960’s began posing a challenge to post-war American society. Despite some tentative steps that decade, it wasn’t until the 1970’s that the buddy cop movie first began testing the limits of traditional social norms. It was in 1976, when the unthinkable happened; a woman became the buddy to the cop. While the foundations of the status quo were surely shaken to their roots by this and other ruptures, it wasn’t until almost a decade later that the genre really began to come into its own.

The 80’s proved to be the heyday of the buddy-cope genre, a time when the form truly crossed a threshold and, dare I say it, forever changed the face of American cinema. This is thanks to the release of Beverly Hills Cop in 1984, a film which pushed the envelope for African American characters in American cinema. That year, the floodgates weren’t just opened, they were swept from their very hinges. Buddy-Cop films became the leading edge of a social revolution, recasting conventional stereotypes with greater subtlety and nuance and daring us as individual citizens and as a nation to question long held assumptions about workplace integration and traditional ways of combining comedy and action. By the end of the ‘80’s, new and more daring buddy-cop entries arrived monthly, addressing complex social issues each time. Women buddy-cops reappeared, Soviet/American buddy cops, Japanese/American buddy cops, dog/human buddy cops (it’s own sub-sub-genre!) human/alien buddy cops, and even federal/municipal buddy cops. The 80’s was a cultural and political minefield, but Buddy Cops were ready for the challenge.

As the decade came to a close however, it seemed that the Buddy-Cop had reached its apex. It was a heady and inspiring time in America, daily forging a new nation of comedic multicultural camaraderie on the screen. Yet, at the same time the very maturity of this groundbreaking genre prevented it from fully remaking society in its own revolutionary image. The Buddy-Cop could apparently go no further. They may have been a symbol of all that was right with America, but the genre’s aesthetic complexity remained out of reach of the very beneficiaries of the new America that the buddy-cop was carving; children under ten.

In the early years of the 1990’s the genre was foundering, seemingly unable to carry through its promise of a greater society. In the bowels of Hollywood however, a chance encounter between two screen-powerhouses was brewing the formula of a new Buddy Cop that would very nearly achieve the status of its progenitors. With almost half a century of collective experience in the television industry, Henry Winkler and Burt Reynolds had a bone-deep understanding of the American intellect. But how do you translate all the complex socio-cultural commentary of Buddy Cops into an ageless cypher?

The answer turned out to be deceptively simple. By taking the touchstone of modern buddy cop cinema, Axel Foley, and effectively shrinking him into an 8 year old child, the genre became palatable to even the most sensitive of American tastes. While Foley had been a comedic loose-cannon, albeit a “good guy”, he was still a ‘black-man’ and this represented a traditional threat to whiteness that his goofy smile could never quite temper. All the imminent sexuality, violence and anger that black men represent in the white American mythos vanished and was replaced by a cute, well scrubbed and innocuous child that needed to be protected from his own naivete. With Burt Reynolds as the cigar-smoking excessive-force-using bitter old man rougue-Cop to this new incarnation of the Buddy, it was a miraculous reconception of paternalism that transcended metaphor entirely.

Cop and a Half is streaming right now on NutFlex, so go and see the the film that made the 90's the 'cool' decade.