Rettsounds – A Mix for Brendon Annesley

If you paid attention to that interview I did with Meltzer last time, you’d know I went through some medical procedures a few weeks ago that included the shaving of my belly button and me being hacked open; which was then followed by older women in loose-fitting scrubs giving me unlimited supplies of questionable pharmaceuticals all in the name of “healing.”

Somewhere between being discharged from the hospital and gingerly plopping myself down onto the couch, my wife told me about murmurings on the interwebs of the passing of Brendon Annesley, the master behind the Brisbane-based Negative Guest List zine and record label as well as guitar slinger/singer in Meat Thump and White Cop. When she told me, I didn’t wince or raise a brow; it didn’t really surprise me. And it wasn’t because of my anesthetized state.

Although I had never met the kid mano-a-mano, I could easily gather from our correspondence that he was one of those guys constantly pushing the limits of reality in every conceivable direction. Whether he was writing about some easily forgettable garage rock crap or Exile on Main Street, you could tell he was squirming to find that microscopic space in language where it all implodes into a perfect disaster. And if it took a few bolts from the bottle or a few bumps of baby laxative to get there, I guess you could say “so be it.” Well, I can’t ‘cause the fucking kid’s dead now and we don’t know how far he would have gotten with his writing or his label or his music. And that’s sad no matter how much rock ‘n’ roll bullshit you plan to heap on his grave.

Shit… I was really hoping Brendon would take the whole “caring about music” thing and ride it off into the sunset so I could forge a new life as the proprietor of a new line of topless (and bottomless in some towns!) dry cleaning shops around the greater northern New Mexico area. But that ain’t gonna happen now.

The other thing that ain’t gonna happen is for me and this kid to have some sort of private pow-wow session in my drawing room far, far away from any stupid haircuts that happen to be attached to jerk-offs. For now, let me just finish up the last of my medicine, close my eyes, and imagine this mix I conjured up to be the shit I’d jam if we ever got to throw down here at the cottage one on one. He might have yelled at me to stop playing hippy shit and put on more Cosmic Psychos, or maybe he would have ralphed all over my house but alas (if I haven’t driven this into your head enough), I’ll never know.

And that’s a shame. It would have been a pleasure to clean his half-digested kabob flecks from the stitching.

1) Vulcan – “High C”

2) The Chosen Few – “Adolph, You Beauty”

3) Negative FX – “IDNTFS”

4) Young Identities – “Positive Thinking”

5) Black Flag – “I’ve Got to Run”

6) The Dicks – “Little Boys’ Feet”

7) Watery Love – “A Condom”

8) The Faces – “Too Bad” (BBC Session)

9) Velvet Underground  – “Coney Island Steeplechase”

10) The Fingers – “The First Time”

11) The Scientists – “Frantic Romantic”

12) Rollerball – “Savage Eyes”

13) True Believers – “Accept It!”

14) Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments – “Baboon’s Liver”

15) The Pagans – “Six and Change”

16) Go –Betweens – “Love Wasn’t Made For You and Me”

17) Axe – “A House Is Not a Motel”

18) King Darves – “For Sure”

19) Peter Laughner – “Amphetemine”

20) Rolling Stones – “Lovin’ Cup”

Previously – Materiality of Existence with Richard Meltzer