The pond has often wondered about the real demographic for Nick Cater and the other reptiles at the lizard Oz.
This letter from one Tony Carr, Brookfield, Queensland, provides a clue that the pond almost missed:
I agree with Nick Cater's commentary ("Outdated Aunty needs a new act", 8/10).
At the behest of my daughter, I recently listened to Triple J, the ABC's young music station.
Indeed. No doubt Mr Carr would benefit from reading Haters gonna hate: A guide to hating triple j.
It's not just the bloody swear words that are a problem:
... triple j is too commercial. triple j has lost touch with its target demographic – “the kids” – by not being commercial enough. triple j plays too much hip-hop. triple j plays too much indie landfill. triple j won’t play your band if musical director Richard Kingsmill doesn’t like it. triple j has fallen from the glory days of the ’90s. triple j insists on lowercase.
oh. ok. if you insist. but back to mr carr:
While listening, a warning was given that "this next track has bad words".
Bad words was an understatement. I was treated to a four-minute violent and obscene rant before my morning coffee. I find it incredible that the ABC thinks it's acceptable to play such content to what is predominantly a young audience.
Sadly Mr. Carr doesn't tell us the name of the track that induced such a bad case of the Tipper Gores, so who knows if it made the filthy fifteen list of the PMRC.
Yep, people have been banging on since the 1980s, long after Muddy Waters sang about hoochie coochie men ...
My daughter's response was, "If you don't like it, turn it off". That's not so easy for a 10-year-old if your big brother wants to listen to the "bad words" track.
Indeed. It would be entirely wrong to shout to the big brother "go to your room, you nasty boy, if you want to listen to that unmentionable filth".
On top of this is the farcical situation where commercial products are the new unmentionables. It's OK to have a track peppered with four-letter words but heaven forbid we mention Coca-Cola on air.
Especially because Coca Cola is so good for your teeth and your obesity control:
Not to worry, no doubt Mr Carr will be pleased to discover that commercial radio never ever plays music with bad words, while promoting commercial goods, especially Coca Cola, to the sky.
And the pond is happy too, because it's clear Mother Grundies, worry warts, Tipper Gore, do gooders, prudes, prigs, puritans, goody-goodies, old maids, stuffed shirts, Holy Joes and Holy Willies are the natural demographic for Nick Cater ...
Not that we'd apply any of those words to Mr. Carr.
We'd prefer to call him a freaked-out lizard oz Cater man, and where's the harm in that?
Take it away Frank:
I'm out at last
Boy, the world sure looks different Wow . . . there's hardly anything fun to do
Since they made music illegal
But I'm hooked
I got the habit
I've got to have it
I need to play
But there's no musicians anymore
They're all gone
Wait! I've got it!
I'll be sullen and withdrawn
I'll dwindle off into the twilight realm
Of my own secret thoughts
I'll walk through the parking lot
In a semi-catatonic state
And dream of guitar notes
To go with the loading zone announcements.
Oh okay, that's from Joe's Garage, but we're talking Freak Out!, twentieth century Tipper Gore style ...
That third picture is a bit racist. That is obviously a woman from PNG where dental care is almost non-existent (completely so in rural areas), taken probably 60 years ago or more judging from the pic, and where tooth decay from chewing Betelnut is still rampant.
ReplyDeleteDon't use rural deprivation in developing countries as the butt of humour.
You might not have noticed, but this isn't a politically correct blog. The woman is safely dead, the work of Coca Cola goes on in the here and now, and in deprived developing countries at that ...
ReplyDeleteDP - I'm not talking about politically correctness, but am complaining about the exploitation of pictures of people in developing countries to make a point about something western in a completely different context.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes Coca Cola has a lot to answer for in developing countries. Their main bottling plant in PNG is in Lae, and they are one of the most profitable western businesses there, but this is just plain wrong.
Why not show pics of bowel cancer patients at St Alfreds to make fun of Cabot's faux liver detox products? How would that go down?
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
ReplyDeleteFrank Zappa
Hi Dorothy,
The Dead Kennedy's, now that brings back my youth, which evidently was quite different from that of Mr Carr.
I distinctly remember a poster of "Penis Landscape" by H.R. Giger which was inserted in the Kennedy's Frankenchrist album and wondering why this rated an obscenity trial (it wasn't very good).
Still I was probably already debauched having listened to all sorts of filth emanating from the likes of Black Flag, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, L7 and the Lime Spiders.
Still if you want to be outraged by some "bad words" Mr Carr wouldn't go far wrong in enjoying "So What" by the Anti-Nowhere League. The Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publication Squad seized and destroyed nearly all the original singles. I had a poor tape recording and regarded myself as pretty subversive as a result.
You can get it on iTunes now.
Always a pleasure
DiddyWrote
And I remember being suspended from High School for bringing in a copy of Oz mag which contained the infamous Rupert Bear cartoon!
ReplyDeleteHere's the background, in case you youngsters don't know. One of the seminal trials on freedom of the press in '70's UK.
ReplyDeletehttp://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/rupage.html
Now THIS was politically incorrect.
Thanks for that link Anon and reminders of the good old days of Rupert Bare and Penis Landscapes.
ReplyDeleteLordy, lordy, was King Missile's Detachable Penis all the rage in 1993? Twenty years ago?
The pond feels faint with age, but at least it's a consolation for piece about "bad words" which has been berated for "bad images".
For a moment there we were thinking of running a different Frank Zappa song, Brown Shoes Don't Make It:
http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/50080/
but we'd probably have been locked up around the time we got to the bit about thirteen year old girls being smothered in chocolate syrup ...