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PUMP UP THE VOLUMES

A READERS' GUIDE TO ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: AMERICANA-ZOMBIES.

By Jonathan Valania

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jan. 23, 2002

Pixies: Formed in Boston in 1986 under the credo "H�sker D� meets Peter, Paul and Mary," the Pixies would, in a very real sense, end music as we then knew it. Principal songwriter Black Francis' lulling verses/volcanic choruses formula would become the overworked template for '90s alternative rock songwriting (see Nirvana). But dynamics was only part of the Pixies' charm. Pet themes like God, death, sex, violence and flying saucers were bathed in eerie guitar sonics, shrieking vocals and inexplicable forays into the Spanish language, then driven home with a thunderous rock beat.

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Public Enemy: The first rap group that rock snobs could comfortably embrace, if only because the dense wall-of-sound production values and confrontational, stick-it-to-the-Man wordplay sounded like the MC5 with a beatbox. Nothing in rap since can hold a candle to P.E.'s explosive righteousness, race/class provocation and comic relief. Sadly, P.E. never got the bling-bling payoff that today's sucka MCs take for granted, but it would take a nation of millions to hold them back.

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? & the Mysterians' "96 Tears": In 1966, ? and the Mysterians occupied that sparkling era between the mop-top innocence of the British Invasion and the full-blown dementia of acid rock; a time when ineffably cool one-hit wonders like the Seeds, the Standells, the Music Machine, the Count Five and the Chocolate Watchband emerged from the suburban garage for one brief turn in the sun before vanishing back into obscurity.

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Quatro, Suzi: Though best known as the tough-talking, gum-snapping Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days, Quatro was in fact a real-deal tough-ass rock chick long before that was considered a viable career option.

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Queen: We always suspected that fat-bottomed girls made the rockin' world go round, but Queen made it official. God bless you, Freddie Mercury.

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Queens of the Stone Age: Big hairy guy-rock that's not afraid to scratch itself in public.

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Quicksilver Messenger Service: Sixties West Coast acid rock pioneers noted for weaving an incandescent web of guitars that could aptly be described with the following adjectives: ringing, spiraling, chiming, jangling, clanging and shimmering. In other words, they helped write the lexicon of postmodern guitar rock.

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Raincoats, The: Pioneering all-gal art punks from the early '80s, distinguished by their jagged song-style and shrill violin.

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Ramones, The: Their mission was to reclaim rock from the pretentious and the pompous, the over-thinkers and the over-players, and freeze-frame it in a state of arrested adolescence, where it could forever celebrate the pursuit of teenage kicks. In the process, they more or less invented punk rock.

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Red Krayola: Over the course of eight records spread out over 34 years, Krayola main man Mayo Thompson has carried on the band's name with a revolving cast of players, dabbling in everything from psychedelic freakout to avant-folk to post-punk experimentalism.