BASEMENT JAXX – “Where’s Your Head At”
Fun, he says. This is a “fun” song. I’m guessing Mr. Ewing doesn’t watch much of the music television, because if he (like I) were exposed to this song via the images of rabid monkeys with human faces chasing after an unsuspecting A&R guy in some sterile hospital Lars Von Trier probably uses for his films, then he might reconsider the “fun” of this song. Even when I push some buttons and “listen” (in my head) to the song away from those freakish images, it doesn’t sound “fun” at all – the beat’s menacing, the voice is hectoring (“we can’t go on, go on without YOU!”), and those shrill electronic whoops & trills sounding off like air raid sirens (or something like – rockist alert! – the introduction to Pere Ubu’s “Non-Alignment Pact”). That could be “fun”, given one’s mood (says the boy that gets his jollies – rockist alert redux! – screaming along to Shellac), but if I’m looking to turn a party frown upside down, this is not the track I’ll be spinning.