Hideout: Bibliodiscoteque #36
Harlan Ellison’s The Glass Teat
Way back in Episode 7 I started to create soundtracks from the collected volumes of Harlan Ellison.
The first two went off without a hitch. When it came time for the third installment I balked. I couldn’t find the right songs in the right order. It just failed to work, so I tossed it aside an moved on.
When I reviewed Hard Case Crime’s reprint of Web of the City, I felt that itch. The one in at the base of my brain that constantly rubs when I leave a project incomplete. So I dug down deep, reread The Glass Teat and produced this: One of my favorite episodes to date. Yeah, I’ve used some of the sound clips before. Sue me (not you, Harlan, this is simply to work of a fan). As I mentioned before on other episodes, the parts that are Harlan speaking can be found at Deep Shag Records (vol. 1 – 3 are especially mesmerizing) except for the bit from “Welcome to the Gulag”. Harlan’s fiery words become incendiary when spoken.
Enjoy the show and Rage Well, === Production Notes:
Some people have asked for a look into the process and the hows and whys song are chosen. Since I tend to write notes anyway, I’ve decided to start typing them up for each podcast.
Enjoy
- I Hate the TV – Violent Femmes
I pulled the Violent Femmes from my Fan Service 80’s podcast in exchange for this one. I’ve been battleing with The Glass Teat podcast for a year now. I originally said it would be out last summer, but I never found the right mix. My worry with this track is that it is too obvious, but the line “I hate the president” (which was a Reagan line) only hit me when I remembered that it was Reagan who put Harlan on a rabble-rouser list with poets and artists alike.
- Old Square Eyes – The Mobbs
This one made the very first set list. I particularly love the lines which focus on the computer and playstation. Harlan’s last word on the subject of The Glass Teat, an audio recording called “Welcome to the Gulag”, turns the argument toward our dependence from TV to the zombie-esq allure of our phones and other devices. It is a trap: A dangerous one which tricks us into believing that we are living life simply because we take an instagram of it.
- TV Screen – Thee Spivs
“What are you watching?” seems to be, in my life at least, the grown-up equivalent of the teenage “Who are you listening to? The image of wanting to punch out your eyes from the back of your head makes me chuckle constantly.
- TV Soup – The Singing Loins
“Let’s watch someone else’s revolution…” and the passivity of action versus inaction.
- Colour Television – Eddie Currant Suppression Ring
ECSR gives a Velvet Underground-esq attack on the propaganda we see on the ole boy. I like to think that the drone in this song is the white noise of TV and the ‘million hypnotized’. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be half way through a show with not clear idea of what I’ve seen. I get lost in the drone and lose the thread of the story.
- TV Mama – Big Joe Turner – 27 Feb. 1970.
“The reason Men are greater than animals isn’t because we can dream of the stars…its because we have something they haven’t. Greed.” Big Joe may be giving a thinly veiled metaphor for something very different, but he opens with a dream. The article from The Other Glass Teat, just seemed apropos.
- TV Baby – Link Wray
I’m an impressionable guy. I fall for those ads which promote whiter whites and happier living through car insurance. I can’t watch TV like some can’t hold their liquor. I get punchy and a bit drunk on NEED. I may have even googled an outfit worn by a character, but that is too much admission.
- I’m The Slime – Frank Zappa
I love the idea of Zappa’s nefarious and evil TV – with Don Pardo accompaniment – saying stuff like ‘until the rights to you are sold”. Hell, they even had a TV dripping slime in front of an audience caged like cattle. Incidentally, I used to go to a club in Providence that had television sets surrounding the stage. I’m sure someone thought it was edgy and cool to show B-films during live shows, but they left them on during all of the acts. People, including myself, had to fight NOT to watch the stupid things. It was like a bug light for our retinas. I distinctly remember one band screaming at the sound guy to turn them off. The soundguy kept saying, “Management wants them on.” The band walked off and I don’t blame them. Who could compete with Russ Meyer?
- Television Youth – Sonic Avenues
Felt this was a great transitional tune. As a kid, we had a TV that played to no one and got watched when someone sat in front of what was on. I’ve seen more horror films in segments while folding laundry for my mom or cleaning the hamster cage. Note: Who the hell gets their kids a hamster?
- Turn That TV Off – Boris the Sprinkler
I chose this song, despite the only connection being “turn that TV off” because it’s a hell of a track. If I ever purchase a vintage Nova (In rust brown like my old man used to have) I will only play this song as I speed down the highway.
- MTV Get off the Air – Dead Kennedys
Most people listening to this podcast probably remember music on MTV. I won’t condemn MTV totally – Mainly because I remember Matt Wagner sending a VJ some Mage comics. I went out and bought them. It’s my favorite comic and deserves a read. I also remember seeing a PiL video and discovering that Johnny Lydon had a career after the Sex Pistols. Everything else was crap, though. Look how low its sunk since Matt Pinfield and Tubes videos. Let it die.
- No More Nothing – F.E.A.R
Lee Ving’s nihilism is unmatched in the 20th century. He is the voice of raw satirical anger.
- TV Party – Black Flag
I know it is too obvious, but it sure does the trick. Of course my favorite version of this song is from Repo Man with Emilio Estavez walking home drunk stumbling over the words.
- TV Casualty – The Misfits
This is hands down one of my all time favorite play at my funeral songs. From throwing up in the corner ‘to feed the flies that I know’ to “babies in prison…breathe deep we need a donor for blood’, these are the greatest horror lyrics ever. And, aren’t we all lifeless and brain dead when feeding from the glass tit ? As another song says, “it is the only wet nurse that would create a cripple.”
- TV Set – The Cramps
Violence on TV? Sure.
- That’s Entertainment – The Jam
An incredibly depressing track about what we find interesting in life: “Watching the telly and thinking about your holidays”. I’m beginning to realize that this whole show is pretty damn preachy and maybe heavy handed, but I think every now and again we need to be reminded. As a guy who loves video games I’m shocked when I look at the new time counters that programmers have added. The idea that I have lost days of my life living a fictional character can get a bit overwhelming. I think that we need more, as my friend says, ‘content providers’ out there.
- 20th Century Man – The Kinks
I’m not romanticizing the past. The hours we spend in front of the TV were, a hundred years ago, spent working or staring our a window or walking around and fighting packs of wolves (my concept of history may be skewed here) but we could stand to be a bit bored. Ray Davies’ lines are all about control of your own life. That is the thesis here. Be in control.
- Television Man – The Talking Heads
Last more because of length than conclusion, The Talking Heads. These guys bash TV a great deal in their songs, but ‘Television Man’ creates a narrative summing it all up. In this track the narrator romanticizes his relationship with the box (‘People like to put the televison down/but we are just good friends’). It’s a 42’ vertical flat screen love affair. I’m not holier than thou. I spend time in front of TV and I have my stories but I try not to fall in love with the damned thing. I even uplug it once and while to show it who is boss.
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